


Bend (and Break)

by MiniInfinity



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: 100 Ways to Say I Love You Writing Challenge, Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2019-11-17 21:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18107195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniInfinity/pseuds/MiniInfinity
Summary: Seokmin doesn't remember how it all started. He's open to anything but conducts everything between him and Soonyoung into three simple rules: they can't know more than what they already know about each other, they can't stay the night, and they can't say each other's name in bed.(or the ninety-nine ways Seokmin and Soonyoung don't realize they're saying "I love you" to each other and the one time they do)





	1. Bend

**Author's Note:**

> i don't want to write smut, but i also think i could write this fic without it :)  
> and yes, this single fic will have all [100 ways to say i love you](http://p0ck3tf0x.tumblr.com/post/98502010026/one-hundred-ways-to-say-i-love-you) because i joked about using all 100 ways in one fic but here i am....doing it for realz lmao  
> also !! i'd love to know if you'd want the 100 ways to be noticeable? like if i did something to the phrases (like **bolding** them. i prefer not to italicize them bc grammar rules). if you prefer it that way, please let me know either in the comments, or on: [ tumblr](http://seokmins-thighs.tumblr.com/), [twitter,](https://twitter.com/leescokmin) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity)  
>  **warnings:** i actually don't know i mentioned a condom once lmao and i barely edited this

Apart from sleep, a lot of Seokmin's hours are diffused either by tapping his pen and waiting for the echo in lecture halls, riling up dead energy from his friends after exams, or lifting shipment boxes in his part-time job at the stationary store a few blocks down. Wedged in between all of those, some of Seokmin's hours are startled by a single question:

_19:44_  
**_Soonyoung_ **  
_Are you free_

And with Soonyoung's dorm complex across from his, it doesn't take long for the knock to revive at his door tonight. Soonyoung parts his lips, sigh forced out through his nose, and Seokmin's eyes delve into the slight dishevel of his hair, black slacks sagging lower around his waist, white sleeves of the once-ironed dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. Soonyoung scans around into the left down the hall, drags his eyes back up and down his figure, before scanning right down the other side of the hallway.

"It's still okay, right?" his voice rumbles at the first syllables, shocking the sound from the pit of his throat. "Mingyu's not here?"

Seokmin shakes his head, skips his answer around his dormmate having to meet his business professor past his office hours, into the evening classes, doubts of jotting his notes wrong in today's lecture in his barely-there state. He mentions asking Minghao about the truth of his math and vocabulary, but his words fail to tip off his tongue the moment the air cuts off his lungs and Soonyoung steps forward, grabs the front of his shirt, and pushes him back inside his dorm. Once the door shuts, once Seokmin reaches around to lock the door, Soonyoung's breath ghosts even more over his lips, drives him up even harder when he lifts himself up to his tiptoes, knocks the words out of him to press a hard kiss on his lips, tear the seam without another sound.

 

 

Soonyoung perches himself on his thighs, knees buckling at his hips, and the weight used to slip a fit of worry into Seokmin when he knocked the older off his lap once. He watches him unhook each button off the white shirt one dragging second at a time, and he hopes Soonyoung teases the clock into stretching seconds and minutes into hours, days dedicated to _just_  unbuttoning his shirt. He wouldn't mind watching his scowl wire even deeper, huffs of frustration when his finger does slip in the heat of the haste and he loses the button. He wouldn't mind staring up at Soonyoung like this because this way, he wouldn't be reminded that they agreed they're doing this as friends and Seokmin would rather be that than strangers who aren't really strangers and acquaintances who know much more than that.

When it all started, it's something Seokmin believed wouldn't happen. He barely knew Soonyoung; before this semester threw him under the bus, Soonyoung was just a name thrown across his group of friends. His face suspended in a blur above the _Hello! My name is_  sticker among the occasional Soonyoung _this_  and Soonyoung _that_. And he never questioned Soonyoung's existence or connection with his friends because he's sure Soonyoung never asked about his existence or connection with his own friends. He also finds it odd to ask about strangers but in the end, strangers is what they didn't become. He'll admit his mind wasn't in the right place to think it was inevitable to never cross paths.

His thoughts break off when Soonyoung pops a couple top buttons off, fabrics giving way to something more than what he had earlier. His eyes flit up even more to the pale expanse of his chest and a sliver of hope that tonight won't be leaving it that way.

But he can't help the chuckle from his lips when he notices one button throwing the evenness of the other buttons out the window. "You didn't even button your shirt right." Soonyoung whines without moving his lips, brushes his hand off when he reaches up and offers, "Wait, no, come here. Let me fix it."

Soonyoung shoots a sharp look at him from the dim space, but Seokmin's hands continue to fumble for the mismatched buttons he long pulled past his waistband, wrinkles gathering at his hips. "I'm trying to get this shirt off, but you want to fix it?" light, douses the scowl off his face all at once. If they didn't have this going on, then maybe Seokmin would have reached even further to paint the curve of his cheeks across his palms, the sharp of his eyes over his fingertips, pink across his lips in a gentle touch. Maybe he would tell Soonyoung that he looks fine, better than fine, but he'd be stepping out of line.

And Seokmin knows they agreed on something else, so he wipes the thought clean from his mind, quirks an eyebrow, drops his hands back on his bare chest. "We can do it with clothes on."

 

 

But all of Seokmin's nights that start this way depletes a dream down like this:

Soonyoung wipes the sweat from his forehead, his neck, slips off Seokmin to grab his shirt on the floor and start wiping himself before Seokmin can consider offering to do so. He buttons most of his shirt into decency, hops his pants on right and disregards slipping his belt back on. Seokmin leans back into the pillows and watches lean muscle carve into every sluggish bend of his arms to get his clothes to where they should be.

His voice scratches, not from forcing himself to keep quiet in the past hour, wheedles some of the sound deeper and rough. He hopes his sentiment crosses more than his heart's hope that Soonyoung won't have to open the door and go back to his dorm. "Call me when you get home. Or your dorm."

\----

Outside either of their dorms, nothing about the night before or the night before that or the night that started it all ever made it into their conversations. No glints of their eyes at each other, no accidental stares down to each other's lips or scraping down one another's figure a millimeter at a time. If anything, they never steal chances to run off to a hidden shelf of the library, to sneak a peck at the corner of his lips when they pass a tree, or even hug for too long before they have to go. They slung arms around each other in front of friends, sure, but he makes sure his eyes don't collapse to the pounding of his heart, surge of blood to his temples.

It never happens, even with the proximity of study groups in a single room, wheels of chairs knocking into each other like a broken tune, resents each word at the futile explanation of their textbooks that soon makes each of them wonder if they're studying for the class they should be studying for or if they've been eavesdropping into the wrong textbook the entire time. It never happens, even when Seokmin runs to grab everyone a cup of morning coffee from Mingyu's work the second the clock bids their late-afternoon classes to a close. It never happens, even when he places the cup down at Soonyoung's fingertips and asks him if "It's two sugars, right?"

Nothing like those ever slipped from his lips, but it doesn't mean it never ventured in his mind. He's not sure if he's thankful that it never does because it might ruin things for them, and he'd rather have Soonyoung so close but still so far than none at all.

 

 

But it still never happens when their friends start dwindling out the study room to catch up on sleep, on a new series, on something outside of school. Moonlight drips into library walls to locking doors, a handful of librarians and assistants waving each other goodbye before the door.

Seokmin looks up from his desk, scans around, and finds a few other brave souls out there, drained from the souls at their eyes. He checks the time on his phone and should start getting ready to go home. His dorm can wait, but his biology exam won't.

He messages the group to ask if anyone wants to head over to the city's library for the night, a drive that ticks the minutes down by a bare few at this hour. It's a library and holds students hostage much longer than their university's library, twenty-four hours granted if he doesn't forget his school I.D. card this time.

It's one person who frees up the hour with him.

_21:55_  
**_Soonyoung_ **  
_I'm already here if you want to join me_

His heart kicks itself and he wonders if he can survive being in a room with Soonyoung. Does he want to skimp out on this chance to be with him, blow up an excuse that something else came up and he suddenly has to cancel this? Can he even talk to Soonyoung without choking up, mind blanking out on what to say because he doesn't know what there is to talk about?

So he does what he usually does to anyone he studies with. He offers to stop by the convenience store on his way to the library, and his phone lights up with a _Drive safely_  before he starts packing his books away.

 

 

He mutters the study room number mute at his lips, trails his eyes through each glass wall until his eyes halt at a familiar black hoodie, pink pout of lips. Seeing Soonyoung hunched over the desk, scowling at his notes and tugging the sleeves to cover his knuckles throw him off, but he knows it only throws him off because the only other times he sees Soonyoung alone is when either of them lie across the bed, fogging up four walls of a dorm with their pants and smearing the windows with lazy grins goodbye before their roommates can discover them in that state.

Seokmin hesitates to knock on the door for this reason. When his fingertips finally rap at the door, Soonyoung's shoulders jolt and the scowl trickles away at the tired, small smile beaming up at his spot from the window of the door. His eyes curve up to make whatever room it can for his smile before a burnout, attention from the papers drawn away enough to plop the pen at his hand over his textbook, snug his hands into his pockets. Ruffled under the hood, Seokmin wants to reach over and tuck the meandering strands back into some semblance of sanity when he's sure Soonyoung has been studying long before this. He stops himself, though, because he knows it might be dusting away the boundaries they've set and maybe the Soonyoung everyone else knows doesn't like the gesture at all.

He steals the seat at the other end of the table, asks if he's been here for long, but it's cut off when the wrapper wrinkles into the bag. "Seokmin, that's not allowed in here."

He shrugs, admits that at this point of his life in university, he doesn't care and nothing can stop him from bringing snacks anywhere and everywhere. To coax Soonyoung out of his misery, at the fact that snacks really aren't allowed in here and the librarian can kick them out any second, he digs something out from the bag, at something he would have given to the little kid staring him down at the counter if it wasn't for Soonyoung.

Among the bags of chips and glass bottles of coffee, his fingertips blindly search for the pink chocolate bar without snapping the cherry blossoms on the wrapper. He smiles into the bag when Soonyoung stares at him and it's taking much longer than it should be, and he refuses to look up when he does find it and mumbles a, "I saw this and thought you might like this."

It's half a truth soaking in a lie. He knows Soonyoung would like it, since it's the same line of chocolate he always snaps at his fingertips whenever the guys step out of the study rooms to relieve their grumbling stomachs and eyebags digging their own graves.

He slips the pink bar over his textbook, past the string of numbers and formulas. The corner of Soonyoung's lips tug into a small smile as he flips the chocolate over in his hands. "Have you tried it before?"

Seokmin shakes his head. "I wanted to try it with you." Soonyoung's hands reach to push the bar back in his hands, but he pulls another bar just like it from the bag. "That's okay, I bought two."

\----

_18:59_  
**_Seokmin_ **  
_Are you free?_

He swipes out the messages, weight at his shoulders grinding to the wall of the restroom stall. He sighs at the updated grade for his biology class, plummeting much lower than he expected, than he hoped for.

And it's not that he didn't study for this exam. That's what bothers him the most. He recites definitions as if he's reading straight from the textbook, can shoot a correct answer at any question his professor throws at him as they walk down the halls. Despite all of that, the second he sits down at his desk and his professor sits at the corner of his eye, he might as well not have studied at all. His eyes focus off his desk, into space, at the whiteboard, at the screen counting down the time left for this exam, not at someones paper besides him.

He thought he would do okay, at least something that can save his grade from borderline percentages even more. But if anything, the number tips off too close to the edge of failure for having studied for this exam.

He rejects Mingyu's invitation about going out to eat, celebrating the last of midterms' week with everyone else. He sighs a lie about heading off to bed early and when he does make it to his bed, he lies with his hands folded over his chest, wondering how his mind drops all those nights of studying all at once.

He's _scared_  to see his professor next week, knowing he'll be asked what happened this time, if he wants to spend more office hours going through this exam and even more hours going through each question marked wrong. He hates how all his efforts for the test are wasted the second they're tested, and he just wishes he can work on it better.

He drowns himself in his thoughts for his next class, when he receives his failure back to him, that he forgets he messaged Soonyoung in the first place.

_19:19_  
**_Soonyoung_ **  
_Yeah_  
_Junhui just left_

 

 

Seokmin's lips skitter up Soonyoung's neck, sighs over his ear seething hard and hot. Red marks track his lips when he pulls back and prints the image of Soonyoung's bare chest pitching in rises and falls, lips knocked open and breaths unevening out shallow. They turned the lights off, but sparks linger at Soonyoung's eyes, moonlight tips off from the ends of his eyelashes, and Seokmin wants nothing more than to forget his reason for knocking at Soonyoung's door.

He wants to push the exam out of his mind, to erase the stress, but even after Seokmin stops Soonyoung from reaching his high the first time, he knows that it's why he leans even closer to Soonyoung and presses a thumb over his lips to get him to smear a kiss for his fingerprint. It's why he drags his hands even lower to Soonyoung's hips and his digits paint red all over the bones, spills the ink of working marks across his skin there.

Even when he ties the condom off, allows their vision to blur back into clarity, everything slams him all at once--his grade, useless attempts to raise it, imminent disappointed eyes when his professor hands his exam back folded in half, score hidden from everyone else. He wants to get up and leave because asking Soonyoung didn't work out as well as he thought it should have.

He plants his hands on the mattress under Soonyoung's sides, warm and sticky at the sides of his wrists, to push himself off and dress himself to return to his dorm and forget tonight and the past hour. He slips the blanket off his waist, catches something flash across Soonyoung's eyes on his way off the bed, falters the moonlight stark against his blown pupils. The panting simmers down to hushed breaths and scrambling to sit up, to Soonyoung scooting across the sheets, and Seokmin casts wary eyes when he's wedged between the older's legs.

Seokmin wants to shove him away, especially when the urge to cry washes him all at once and it might actually be more pathetic than cathartic to. He refuses to cry in front of Soonyoung, doesn't want to open up when he shouldn't, because if he opens up and Soonyoung shows any signs of gentle care, he might fall in deeper and he doesn't need that right now.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he whispers, and his heart wrings hard for the way Soonyoung's hands slip down to his waist, shifts to face the him.

His mind teeters between telling Soonyoung the pent-up stress boiling after the exam, hours of studying into exhaustion exhausting into futile, and wanting to sink his head into the bare junction of his shoulder and neck and telling him to forget about it. But he reminds himself that they agreed not to know more than they already know, and he stands by that.

So he shakes his head, Soonyoung's fingertips tapering drops off his skin and from letting him in any deeper. Warmth blankets his cheeks and his neck turns, vision cranes to Soonyoung's eyes basking in front of him, lips slightly parted with slight apprehension of a question, and his heart twists even more as he musters all the strength he can to resist tilting his head and kissing him right then. "Something is obviously bothering you."

His exam score flashes behind his eyelids and he thinks he might be breaking the rules, but it doesn't mean he can't bend them.

"Is it us?" Soonyoung's voice breaks, and he wishes it never had to. "Is it work? Your classes?"

Seokmin nods at the last question, mumbles to his chest how much worse he did than he hoped for.

"It's okay," Soonyoung consoles him, and he doesn't know if he should feel bad that some of his next words are lost in the pads of his thumbs running across his hips, pauses before reaching a full stroke and back. "It's just one test. You'll get it by the end of the semester." Seokmin smiles into the next question, of what class this exam was for. "Your a music major or something, right? You won't be singing about cells, I hope, but for now, I can ask a friend to help you."

"I can't do that," Seokmin sighs exasperated, wishing he never had this conversation because he came here to forget about it. "Your friend needs so much time to teach me."

Soonyoung's airy chuckle skims over his lips, tickles one out of Seokmin's own. "He works at the tutoring center. It's literally his job to teach you." Delicate between his lips, his voice frays off. "Don't cry, Seokmin. Biology isn't for everyone, and I'm sure you're doing great already."

His voice shrinks into his chest, "But my score is so low."

"If you want to bring it back up, my friend can help you study. I'll help you study." Soonyoung presses up into his chest, leans so close that Seokmin's skin can trace exactly where his breath starts and ends all over. "Is that fine? We're not breaking anything, right?"

\----

What Seokmin loves about weekends, besides escaping those biology lectures that stop him from taking all music classes this semester, is his job at the stationary store at a less-trekked corner of the city. He spends the first morning hours of his Friday at the auditorium, spectating Soonyoung, Junhui, Minghao, and Chan fly over the stage, slit the air with every sharp move. In the seats, everyone else struggles to not spill their snacks as they make it through this one practice of many, bass beats punctuated by yelps when gravity despises them and soda cans.

In the end of the performance, when the four collapse on the stage, chests rising and falling almost as synchronized as their routine just seconds earlier, Seokmin stumbles up the stairs to the stage when Seungkwan asks to continue their talent show and plants his palms on Seokmin's shoulders. Seokmin scratches his head once his feet center the stage, shy smile slipping too easily when he admits he doesn't know what song to sing, if he'll be loud enough.

With Soonyoung lying at the edge of the stage, he catches the glint at his eyes above a knowing smirk, and Seokmin allows melodies to piece itself into thin air. And when his voice simmers down to the last note, it's his friends clapping their hands and spitting out more song requests after the first--from ballads that lull his heart into a sad slumber, his hand snaking into the home over his chest, over his heart, to rock songs that scratches his voice in the best way possible with some of the best people he ever crossed paths with.

Laughter frees into the ceilings louder than his own singing when someone--he's sure it's Mingyu--requests the Naruto opening, and it's even better when he sings with twelve other voices.

 

 

He pinches a Tayo eraser between his fingers, little blue bus colliding its rubber bumpers into the one in the small girl's fingers. The girl giggles, slaps a more secure hand over the glass counter besides the register when he finally starts backing his eraser away from hers. The giggle is the first sound he hears after the bell welcoming the girl in. It's the second ring of the bell above the door that plasters his usual greeting in his throat.

A faint smile on Seokmin's face won't stop when Soonyoung walks in, eyes absorbing everything around him, and he wonders if he ever ventured inside a stationary store before. His eyes latch onto the white lights of the shop and lingers there. A smile washes all over his face each step he takes deeper into the shop, between the aisles, until he reaches the counter, until he reaches Seokmin.

"Did you know I work here?" Seokmin asks, the girl skirting off to the rack of keychains at the corner of the counter.

Soonyoung shakes his head. "I was in the neighborhood and thought this place was cute."

 

 

When he and Soonyoung become one of the few people in the shop and one starts asking him specifically about black erasers, Soonyoung roams around. The register clears after he guides everyone to everything they need, and Soonyoung comes back around with graphite refills, erasers, pens in a small shopping basket. Seokmin doesn't think when he offers to pay for it, to pay back for sticking around despite how dull being here can be.

"They're _my_  school supplies," Soonyoung says, pulling the basket closer to himself, plastic scratching the glass. He might have to grind his elbows to clean that up later, but he doesn't care.

"No, no," Seokmin resists, tugging the basket towards his edge of the counter. "It's my treat."

But Soonyoung slaps the bills into his palms when a little kid behind them huffs about wanting to see the staple-less staplers at the counter, besides Seokmin's tapping finger on the transparent. He gives up at that, more at the red in the kid's ears than the fact that he has no time against the kid to run to the back of the shop and grab his wallet.

Soonyoung bids him a goodbye after he bags everything, a promise to come back whenever the semester drains his school bag of supplies. He watches Soonyoung walk straight out the door, without turning back or looking left or right past the welcome mat. Seokmin calls out a "Look both ways" before the bell rings because the store unfortunately resides at an intersection and he witnessed too many newcomers forget about that to stay silent any longer.

\----

Seokmin follows Soonyoung's advice down to the letters, attempts to work on what went wrong from the moment he started studying to the millisecond of turning in his exam. He even asks his professor for those office hours he told himself he might never really use. With spring performances coming up for Soonyoung, they can't meet up as much and it's simply another reason why he should go to those office hours.

A quick meet-up at Soonyoung's dorm and clarification that Junhui is actually the biology tutor this semester paves a grade-saving opportunity for Seokmin to follow. Junhui even saves a seat for him during his tutoring session by leaving his backpack at at the seat and laptop and notebooks on the table. It's only his first session, but Seokmin can't help but thank him and ask what kind of food he likes. With Junhui's corner leaving him to crane his neck over the other students, he's grateful for the saved seat and it's the least he can do to pay him back.

 

 

_23:12_  
**_Soonyoung_ **  
_Are you free_

The moon above them never bleeds into sunlight of the next day, but it shouldn't stop him from turning Soonyoung down at this hour. Seokmin doesn't know his schedule, doesn't know what goes on around in his life outside of school and the dance club, so there isn't much to question. After all, it's what they don't question after this started.

But instead of Soonyoung's usual stumbling to reach his lips, he stumbles to just close his own door. Angry lines between his eyes, caved in with darkness by moonlight through the curtains; it's all wrong. Everything crushes Soonyoung from heavy shoulders, drags of his feet.

Seokmin holds onto his shoulders steady and tips his chin up. Languid blinks flutter across his eyes for the wrong reasons, he picks that up when Soonyoung's breath trembles a slight. He asks what Soonyoung did just before this, just before messaging him, but he shakes his head, dismisses the extended practice and nothing else. It's slapped off entirely when a swallow lodges itself in his throat, and Seokmin's heart wants to turn his eyes away from all of this.

"I'll drive you to the hospital, Soonyoung," Seokmin whispers to him, soft at the harsh grip on his jacket, fingernails digging into cotton and flesh.

 

 

The sudden drop in sodium levels isn't something to worry too much about, is what the doctor advises Seokmin. Despite assuring his worries of something more serious, the doctor tells him that Soonyoung has to stay in the hospital overnight, anyway, to be monitored. As the white coat disappears from the corner of his eye, he turns in the chair and to Soonyoung's eyes glued to the ceiling.

"You scared me," Seokmin sighs into a chuckle, scratching the back of his head anxious at his weak attempts to tease the tension off the flat of Soonyoung's lips, dark rings under his eyes. "But I'm glad it's nothing too bad."

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, monotonous and heavy, "I didn't mean to sca-"

An unfamiliar ringtone resounding from Soonyoung's bag halts everything in the room. Seokmin offers to grab his phone from the bag and when he spots the heart emojis around _Mom_ , Soonyoung dips deeper into the bed, hides under the sheets even more.

"I'm more scared of my mom."

"I'll do it for you" automatic from Seokmin. He never passed a word to Soonyoung's mother before and he didn't even know Soonyoung had that type of bond with his mother where he can put heart emojis around her name. It might be scary, having to break the news that her son is in the hospital, but the heart emojis might help carry some of that weight off his shoulders.

After introducing himself as Soonyoung's friend he met this semester, that he drove him to the hospital when he wasn't looking so well, he hits it off well with her. She even jokes with him when he explains that the reason for their emergency room visit is merely a sudden drop in salt in his body.

"With all the junk food he eats, I never thought he would be low in salt."

He shares a tip of laughter with her and amidst the bids of goodbyes, he dismisses that it's not a problem at all when she thanks him for staying with her son. He slips Soonyoung's phone back into his bag and he scoots closer besides the bedside, about to mention how nice his mother seems until his eyes land on Soonyoung's hand lonesome at the bed. He wants to reach out, run a slow thumb over the back of his palm, but he tells himself not to. It's not as if they held hands outside of each other's dorm; most of the time, when their fingers do slip in between each other's, it's the back of their palms pressing into the mattress.

"Hey, it's fine," he assures him, voice softening against the beeping, whirring of machines. "We just have to wait a little before you can go."

Soonyoung blinks down, eyes glistening when he peers down at the needles digging into his skin, wires almost tangled at his fists. He doesn't want to ask if he's crying, if the hospital scares him. He doesn't want a word to pass, not when he does reach out, thumbs the tear that beads and curves down his cheek. His next words lock his throat up, and Seokmin wishes he never had to ask, that he knew the answer all along.

"Can you say for a bit?" Seokmin swallows hard when his palm carves the shape of his cheek. "Or just until I fall asleep?"

 

 

Seokmin stays for a bit longer than a bit. He stays until night shadows kiss morning overcasts goodbye, scuffle of nurses hopping in and out of his room and offering him stern, polite smiles when they catch his eyes. He stays long enough to hear Soonyoung's stomach rumble and to hear him plead an near-mute "Stay" when he offers to drive to the nearest supermarket and pick something up for him there, to make out the "Don't go" written into the lines against his palm when Soonyoung squeezes his hand when he catches a nurse's eye at the door.

He stays long enough to wake with a creak at his neck and an ache in every bone. He groans at the squeak of shoes on tile, squints hard at sunlight peeking into the blinds.

"He'll get discharged this afternoon, I'm sure," the one nurse affirms him when he digs his chin back into the mattress, turns to Soonyoung sleeping as if they're not in the hospital at all. "Get some more sleep. You don't want to leave without it."

His smile turns at the corners with no hesitation but a lot of will.

 

 

He wakes up a second morning to plastic crackles over hum of machines, beeps of EKGs, routine patter of shoes on tile again. The sun sheds some generosity against his vision, blinding him the first thing before even risking a peek open. He sinks his head deeper into the mattress to block the light, but his ear brushing the ice metal bar of the bed springs his entire spine back up. He finally chances opening his eyes, turns his head to Soonyoung staring at him, exposed and guilty of the juice box in one hand and plastic straw in the other.

His lips barely move for the "We can share," and he doesn't bat an eye when Seokmin shakes his head and tells him to drink it all. "You can have half, then." When he shakes his head a second time, knowing Soonyoung should eat more if it means he'll get better, he slides over a plastic container, left with a thick piece of watermelon. "I saved a piece for you. At least eat this."

Seokmin smiles, thanks for saving him a piece, and silently chews his way around the juice yearning to reach for his elbow. And with the void of words, he wonders if Soonyoung is really quiet around others, that outside the stage, all his volume goes straight for the speakers and he keeps his presence tucked into a quiet part of the earth until he bows under a spotlight.

He watches Soonyoung's hands tremble around the juice box, at his eyes skirting around everywhere besides the sealed drink at his hands. Seokmin sticks the half-eaten slice at his teeth to reach over, pluck the box off his hands, pop the straw in, and hand it back to him. The tiny smile Soonyoung offers is fleeting, and Seokmin wonders if he really smiled at all.

The Soonyoung on stage juxtaposes the Soonyoung he's been with since last night. He looks awfully small in the gown they offered when he transferred into a different room for the night. With the shoulders draping loose at his bones, Seokmin blushes at the hem dipping lower and darkening marks across his chest peeking over.

But his thoughts of those nights stop when he looks back at Soonyoung. He listens to inhales harden at his ears, alert eyes shooting for the door when they hear a cry. Soonyoung's hand perspires against his, but he doesn't let go. He squeezes Soonyoung's hand a little to remind him that he's there and perhaps, a hospital settles at an unpleasant part of his brain, of his memory.

Seokmin keeps that piece of Soonyoung tucked into the back of his mind.

 

 

The wind slices at their noses when they dodge visiting family members near the entrance of the hospital. A shiver washes Soonyoung's entire body numb behind the sliding doors, teeth clattering and lips drying, nearly peeling, tongue licking them with useless intent. Seokmin peels his first layer off and hands his jacket over to Soonyoung but when the older shakes his head, Seokmin unfolds his jacket and holds it out for him to slip his arms right through.

"You can take my jacket," Seokmin tells him again, reminds him of the flimsy long sleeve in the hospital bag. "Come on, it's cold outside."

Soonyoung's eyes skim down to his hands, nodding a quiet _thank you_ , and slipping his jacket on. He plays with the long sleeve, poking bare fingertips at the edge and wiggling them around. Seokmin isn't sure if his heart is beating hard or barely keeping itself together from breaking at the sight of Soonyoung in his own jacket when there aren't many days that this can happen.

\----

_04:19_  
**_Soonyoung_ **  
_Are you free??_

Seokmin blinks hard at his phone, reading the message and the time for the third, fourth, and fifth time. He doesn't care about the checkmark that says he read it. He doesn't care about how the three dots pop up on his screen, only to fade out after a few seconds with no new messages to follow.

He replies with a _Yeah I am_ , asks where they should meet because there's nowhere private at four in the morning unless it's a public place.

 

 

Before Seokmin knocks on his door, it opens with a slow creak and Soonyoung's eyes refuses to go anywhere close to his eyes, resorts to the floor and stares digging the eye bags even deeper. Soonyoung sighs, asks if they can talk in the lobby, outside, somewhere that might not have half-asleep ears listening or brains half-submerged into cramming. He follows him down the stairs and he wants to ask if Soonyoung wants to try something new or what.

"Sorry, it's so late," Soonoyoung mumbles as they sit at the closest bench from the doors.

"It's okay," Seokmin assures him, toying with the edges of his sleeves, "I couldn't sleep."

Which isn't a lie at all. With everything that happened in the hospital, his mind swung back and forth into thinking he and Soonyoung won't be anything after or they would put everything behind them.

"I just want to thank you for yesterday." At that, Seokmin nods because it's something he would do for a friend, and Soonyoung is a friend to him. "And I wanted to ask if I broke anything." He shrugs, allows Seokmin's jacket to slide off his shoulder, and he stops himself from reaching out and tugging it back into place. He never told Soonyoung to bring it back, but maybe he doesn't want it back when he offered it to him in the first place.

"No," Seokmin shakes his head, sitting back up. "No, I don't think you did. We would do the same for our other friends, too, right? It happened with Wonwoo before, remember?"

Soonyoung shares a crooked smile for the ground at his feet, fingers toying the sleeves at his lap. "Yeah, I remember. You and Mingyu drove him to the hospital."

"He always gets sick," Seokmin chuckles at Mingyu's bickering once they made it back to the dorms. "That was bad; I shouldn't be laughing."

"Don't worry," elicits a chuckle from Soonyoung's own to accompany his, "I like your laugh." The tiny comment sends butterfly wings scraping all over his lungs, along the outlines of his heart, and he wonders if butterflies are marching all over inside of him. Soonyoung said he _likes_  his laugh; he's had people scold him that his laugh is loud, bounces in their ears in all the wrong directions, but Soonyoung's words slap those out of his periphery because it's _Kwon Soonyoung_  and he likes his laugh. "Wonwoo still laughs at it because it happened a few times before."

"Yeah, and Mingyu is always worrying about him, anyway."

"So no rules broken?"

"No rules broken."

\----

Seokmin discovers that Junhui loves spicy food, tips off the spectrum of capsaicin by adding more chili pepper flakes to the already-spicy cup of ramen, and he wonders if Soonyoung shares this same habit. He grimaces as Junhui hums around the chopsticks holding the noodles back, slurping the deep broth with minimal water that's barely enough to soften the noodles. When the session is over, Junhui offers company on their walk back to the dorms, and it ends with Seokmin following him to the door. He spots a speck of Soonyoung at the opposite end of the hall, just when the elevator is about to slid shut, and the latter jogs over with a winded "Hi" and a question of how studying went along.

Junhui excuses himself for a nap before his afternoon class. With a goodbye into the dorm, a good luck in a few hours, Soonyoung follows Seokmin down to his dorm.

 

 

Soonyoung plucks his shirt off the floor with a pinch of his fingertips, sticks his tongue out when he spots a stain that wasn't there when they stumbled into Seokmin's dorm. "I don't want to wear my shirt."

Seokmin points at his drawer at the end of his bed. "You can borrow mine."

Soonyoung makes his way to the dresser, drops his hand on the first handle. A creak of the wood open blows his eyes wide open because he probably opened his brief drawer and he never told him which one his shirts are in. He closes it with an anxious slam before opening the next one under.

"You've seen at least five of those," Seokmin scoffs, stuffing a pillow under his head and tapping his fingers across his bare chest. A blush paints Soonyoung's cheeks all endearing and if Seokmin can, if Soonyoung allows him to, he'd pull him back down on the bed, kiss the pink into reds and reds into purples all over. "You should be used to seeing my underwear."

He scowls and grabs what must be the first shirt in the drawer. He throws it on, black long sleeves seeping the ends over his fingertips and the hem sliding off his shoulders a slight. "I think your clothes are too big for me."

"It looks good on you," Seokmin smirks because it really does, especially since Soonyoung has yet to zip his pants on. Especially since it might mean he can stay a little longer getting ready; it might mean he has Soonyoung around a little longer than usual.

\----

The groupchat buzzes for a study group at the library and Seokmin notices everyone who agreed to it has no classes together or are not taking any subjects relative to one another this semester. He stuffs his books in his bags, though, and heads to their usual study room.

 

 

Not a textbook sits in plain sight when he steps inside the study room, but it's quiet, a contrast of what they really are when they study. The silence mocks something in him and he wants to say something before sliding into the seat next to Wonwoo. He doesn't move after setting his backpack at his feet, wondering why the older clenches his jaw. He scans across the table, notices the first person to agree to this proposal hasn't even arrived yet.

"We're not studying," Mingyu admits from across the table.

"Yeah, Soonyoung's pet chick died and he wanted to study to get his mind off of it," Wonwoo supplies even further. Seokmin merely nods, not really knowing what to say because he didn't know Soonyoung owned any chickens, let alone pets.

 

 

"Hey, I'm sorry for your loss, Soonyoung," Seokmin's voice deflates once Mingyu and Wonwoo split ways from the two. Soonyoung shrugs after they say a goodbye to Chan and Minghao, but the pout at his lips speak to him more. "I'll-I'll walk you home. Or to your dorm."

Soonyoung looks up, pout still on his lips and a heavy sigh washing his entire countenance. "Can you?"

They allow the silence to talk for the both of them. He isn't sure what else to say after a friend tells him that his pet chick died, but he offers a simple "Call me if you need anything" when they reach the door and Soonyoung thanks him for walking with him.

\----

His sister rarely gets to call, especially since she runs a floral shop in the next city over from home. But when she does, she never forgets to ask him how he is, how university life has been treating him so far, if he made any new friends. With springtime around the corner, though, it cuts down to a call a month, if he's lucky, because everyone thinks springtime is the best time to buy flowers.

But at the end of each call, he always asks if she wants him to send over some notepads; pastel floral prints, faded brown designs that resemble yellowed pieces of ancient magazines piecing histories together into his present. He also sneaks a few fine-point pens for her and thicker points for their parents. At the very end of his shift, he rings himself up, boxes the stationary to send to his sister, and he always taps a floral shipping label for her, his neatest penmanship for _Lee Minah_.

\----

The words "Studying abroad" shock out the conversation when Soonyoung sits down at his bed, Junhui knocking shoulders into Seokmin's, Chan's feet tapping at Minghao's toes from Junhui's bed. An entire summer break in a different country. Minghao, Junhui, and Chan disperse for the pamphlets, flyers, course catalogs on the beds and desks, but Soonyoung refuses to pick any of those up, gnawing at his bottom lip. He listens to Chan swallow down numbers, _prices_ , of tickets and boarding for a summer.

"You should take it," Seokmin tells him, tucking his chin at his knees and nudging Soonyoung's toes.

His face drops into his hands, sighs through the slit of his fingers. "I don't know if I'll be good enough to even apply for it."

"You'll make it for sure," Seokmin offers a thumbs-up, reaches over to grab one of the pamphlets and spread it out on Soonyoung's lap. "I believe in you."

 

 

When Seokmin heads back to his dorm, he messages Junhui for a link to the program. It's the promise that the three will go only if Soonyoung does and Junhui's plea for Seokmin to convince something into him that makes him wonder what it means. What effect does Seokmin have on Soonyoung to go over _his own dance team_?

He sighs, teeters between wanting to see the cost of plane tickets or walking back to Junhui's dorm and teaming up with the older to convince him to go on this trip. But he scrolls through varying damages of the dent into his bank account. He might have to cut down his convenience store runs for a month or three, but he thinks it won't hurt too bad compared to what happens if he doesn't do it. He doesn't want Soonyoung to waste an opportunity like this, especially when his own members are counting on him to be there.

He imagines possible reactions Soonyoung might have to this. Would he be excited? He hopes so. He wants him to do what he wants to do and he knows the abroad program will take him in.

He shoots a messages to Soonyoung to meet him and once they settle for the same bench in front of the dorms, he sets out.

 

  
"You're kidding me, Seokmin," he deadpans, lips trembling without a sound after.

"I'm not, actually." Seokmin pulls out folded pieces of paper from his sweatshirt pocket. He unfolds it, guides a finger over from Incheon International to John F. Kennedy, Incheon to New York City, home and far away, comforts of kindling his dreams to building a reality with those aspirations. "I bought you a ticket and it's real." Seokmin points at the barcode, runs a thumb there.

"Why did you?" shatters Seokmin's hopes of helping Soonyoung reach across the world for this chance. He wanted Soonyoung to be happy without the tears bubbling at the corners, back of his palm wiping his cheek hard and fast, and his voice shakes, shoves his cry back down his throat. Seokmin isn't sure if he regrets this or not. "It's expensive and I didn't even apply. They might not even accept me into the program and even if they did, I'd get sick and-"

"I want you to take this opportunity," Seokmin cuts him off. "I want you to be happy, you know. It's not something the university offers every year, and the guys really want you to go. Junhui told me they can't go without you."

Lamplight cascades down Soonyoung, refracts the streaks down his cheeks and to the trail brimming his eyes. A shaky inhale in, he bows his head down, and Seokmin stops himself from tilting his chin up and wiping the tears off his eyes, at his jaw. "I can't do this to you, Seokmin."

"If you're not going to take the ticket, then who will?" He folds the papers back up, takes Soonyoung's hand in his to open his palm up and press the ticket into his hand. "Take it, Soonyoung. You can do it, I know you can."

His lips work the words out, tears still glistening at the bottoms of his eyes. But his arms bound for Seokmin's shoulders, grip at his jacket that has Seokmin fleeing from the hesitation to return the hug. Of all the months he's known Soonyoung, he never hugged him like this and it's warm, it's safe and Seokmin wishes the only reason they have to let go is for Soonyoung to board the plane to New York City. When they do break off, Seokmin almost reaches out _again_  to thumb the last tears off.

"How can I repay you?"

Seokmin shrugs, "Don't worry, we'll figure it out after you come back."

\----

They borrow a study room at the library and even though he and his friends have been at this for more than two semesters, he wonders when they will ever steal a second one. Seokmin stumbles in with a drink carrier, four cups of coffee nearly spilling after Mingyu and Minghao promised to pay for the other guys as long as Seokmin drives them to Mingyu's work. When he walks into the study room, he frowns at the filled seats. He places the drink holder on the table, but a tug at at his jacket sleeve stops him from leaving.

He turns to Soonyoung lifting his backpack from the chair beside him. "Come back, I saved you a seat."

 

 

Soonyoung promises to close his textbooks, stash his notebooks and highlighters into his bag when they step into his dorm. But he perches himself at his bed, textbook still at his lap, throws a "Just one more chapter" over his shoulder that doesn't hide the scowl on his face. The drag of his hand over his eyes tells him he's been at or long before the study session and plans on doing so long after it.

"You just came from the library," Seokmin says, sitting in front of him on the floor. "You should take a break, at least."

 

 

The break ends with Seokmin's palms skating down his chest. With Soonyoung above him, he slips a hand over the back of his neck, heated at the touch, and pulls him down when he bites his lower lip, wires his brows together. The first syllable of his name stutters into a daydream and the second time it happens, something jolts in his heart and his hands search for a way to make it stop, shut the world down mute. A split second before the second syllable of his name can slip its way through, Seokmin lifts his hand, runs a thumb over Soonyoung's lower lip. Before he can piece his name together, Seokmin tilts his head down by the chin, kisses him because he doesn't want to hear Soonyoung say his name.

And it might ruin things either way--Seokmin stopping him or not stopping him at all--but he doesn't want something that will keep playing in his mind when he shouldn't have heard it in the first place.

\----

Seokmin groans as he loads Mingyu's car with Soonyoung's luggage, more at the strain in his legs than the bouncing of the car with the heavy load in the trunk.

"I can go get Mingyu-"

"No, I got this," Seokmin huffs, wanting to scream when Junhui's bag won't budge for a couple more. "It's not heavy, I promise. I'm stronger than I look."

His cheeks burn up to his ears; perhaps it's the near-summer heat singeing into his lungs, the fact that Junhui's luggage really won't move a centimeter, or discovering that Soonyoung's giggle may be the softest sound he's ever heard.

 

 

They slide into the back seat, Soonyoung's leg bouncing and riding up the knee of Seokmin's sweatpants, fingertips gripping onto his sweatshirt, curling, relaxing, digging jagged curves of bitten nails into palms, seats. Mingyu hasn't even slipped his key in to get his car warming up, but Soonyoung's eyes keep darting to the trunk.

Seokmin asks him if he needs anything from there, but it's a mere "I forgot my wallet."

Soonyoung reaches over to start his way out of the car but with Seokmin at the window seat, he places a hand on his shoulder, tells him to "Sit down, I'll get it."

 

 

It turns out, Soonyoung also forgot his phone in his bag after realizing he wanted to ask everyone for song requests on their way to the airport but not having his phone to do so. Despite Seokmin sighing at a summer without Soonyoung, Junhui, Minghao, and Chan to bother, he follows each tune with a hum. When he catches Soonyoung's eyes on his glance out the window, he turns away, back out to the city.

"What kind of chocolate do they sell at airports?" Soonyoung asks out of the blue, just when the song switches into a ballad about leaving and wanting to say, and Seokmin wants to demand who picked the song about ripping plane tickets. But he shrugs, more at the reminder of Soonyoung leaving than the joke. "Plane chocolate," is barely audible over the lower speakers and strong air conditioner. If he tilted his head to the side, maybe he can fully see Soonyoung sinking into his seat and knowing he's the reason for why the car remained dull of anyone else singing along.

 

 

After checking into his flight and his luggage, a punch at his gut still bruises into the open when he notices Soonyoung has yet to look at him since the joke at the car ride. Seokmin tries to alleviate the tension by nudging at his shoulder, feigns surprise that Soonyoung knows how to check in, despite this being his first trip out of the country. After paying for the trip, no one speaks up about breaking their bank account with overpriced food at the restaurants nearby and nor do they want to buy something minuscule from the gift shop. But they pass by, anyway, to steal a glimpse of what people bring back to their homes.

Seokmin nudges Soonyoung's shoulder another time when his eyes land on chocolate bars at the counter. He nods his chin at the front counter, grins around a low, "Do you want to buy some plane chocolate?"

Soonyoung lifts the corner of his lip up and his eyes soften, but he shakes his head more at the revival of the dead joke from the car ride than the actual offer to buy anything.

 

 

From where check-in blends into the gates to another country, Seokmin waves his arms in the air, booms out a, "Have fun in New York, guys!" when he manages to convince Soonyoung that "if you don't let go of me and Mingyu now, you might miss your flight."

Soonyoung pulls Chan's arm from catching up to Junhui and Minghao, swings an arm around the youngest's shoulders and waves back. He relays a, "Don't worry about me" from across the floor that sends Mingyu's teeth biting into his lower lip in worry.

With Mingyu drained of any energy for a ride back to the dorms, Seokmin offers to drive the way back. Splayed out in the backseat, without a care of proper seatbelts, Mingyu snores, Seokmin huffs at the steering wheel, and he tells himself that it might be a rough month or two without Soonyoung.

\----

Fraying beginnings of summer threads him into the stationary shop for the most part. With vacations for all the schools nearby, Seokmin's boss tells him he can take a week or two off; his granddaughter wouldn't mind taking over the shop in the meantime and he knows it's been a while since Seokmin visited his family because of the distance from school and home.

So during his last break before his boss forces him out of the shop, to have a true break from school, he calls up his sister, admits that their days in the shop aren't as busy as her days in her flower shop. But even when squeezes the life out of his sister in an embrace long overdue, he pricks at his fingers, wondering if he and Soonyoung really did break anything. Even if they did, would they still want to keep this going?

\----

He doesn't put much thought at Chan's message to the group chat about departing soon and Seoul being less than a day away. He doesn't think much about it when he hopes onto the train of picking them up from the airport, to lessen the burden from their parents'. He doesn't think much when he swipes for Soonyoung's name, sends a _I'll pick you up from the airport if you want_. But he shouldn't think much of it when Soonyoung thanks him for the offer, but his parents are already planning on picking him up.

_15:23_  
**_Soonyoung_ **  
_Do you want to come too?_  
_My parents can bring you_

But after much debate, Seokmin's apprehensive "Are your parents fine with this?" because of the extra hour of driving, he assures him that his parents want to meet the one who stayed with their son at the hospital. He tells Seokmin it's the least his parents can do for him to thank him for his troubles.

A knock raps at his door and when he catches the bowl of tangerines at his sister's hand, he slides across to her in his rolling chair with a favor at his smile. "Can I ask you something?" Seokmin beams as Minah tosses a tangerine at his direction."

She leans against the door, popping a slice into her mouth. "What is it?"

"Can I get a bouquet for a friend?" he smiles even wider, peeling his tangerine in a few seconds before handing half to her. "He's coming back from America."

Her eyes scan down his entire countenance and her eyes scares something into a back corner of his mind, maybe enough to take the request back when she asks him something so trivial that he feels awful not knowing. "Sure. What's his favorite color?"

His jaws work out an answer, screeches their gears for a pigment that Soonyoung _might_  like. But he can't lie to his sister; he admits he doesn't know and he's grateful she doesn't ask how he doesn't know Soonyoung's favorite color.

Not long after he tells his parent about Soonyoung's parents coming to pick him up and drive him to the airport tomorrow morning, his own parents agree to the idea and his father grabs his keys, asks if he wants to accompany him to the supermarket and buy beef for them. Before Seokmin can even say yes, his father slips his shoes on and asks Seokmin to grab a couple grocery bags on his way to the door.

 

 

He pushes the cart behind his father picking up packages of beef displayed too fancy for something to be consumed in a bat of an eye. His father asks him about Soonyoung, what his major is, if he's friends with his friends, and it weighs into the pit of his stomach not being able to answer some of his questions. But like his sister, he smiles when his father consoles him that it's okay that he doesn't know.

\----

When the doorbell chimes the next morning, Seokmin almost swears Soonyoung was at his door when Soonyoung's mother introduces herself with a bag of Namyangju pears. Her smile steals fragments of the sun when her eyes shoot up into moons, and Seokmin knows exactly who Soonyoung gets his smile from. His mother even tells her to come in, make herself at home, but she stays put at the door when she admits that her husband is waiting at the parking garage because they're not sure if their car is allowed to be parked in the garage.

Seokmin stands at the kitchen, eyes darting back and forth from his mother to Soonyoung's mother at the kitchen counter, settling at the stools as if they're not supposed to be going anywhere anytime soon. He doesn't mind; his mother seems to love the company of Soonyoung's mother.

But perhaps Seokmin's presence broke their talks about recipes, what else Namyangju is known for, when Soonyoung's mother glances at the watch at her wrist, stutters that she should start going, that she didn't mean to stay this long. After a kiss at his mother's cheek, a hug from his sister, and passing the bouquet for Soonyoung to his hand, he holds an arm out for Soonyoung's mother to hold as they walk down the hall.

Before the elevator dings for the garage floor, half his worries subsided in awkward car silence and radio static on their way to the airport. But they wash out into the waves of opening him up about Soonyoung, school, work, and Soonyoung's father even glances at him from the rear-view mirror and asks "Can you give us a mini-concert?" when he confesses that he likes to sing. The applause from his mother resounds at his ears in the same way his own mother's applause resounds in his--pink palms, eyes disappearing from the smile, and fragments of "that note" and "your voice is too good."

At the ends of his post-encore rush, his mother points out the flowers he clasps by the stems at his lap, "Where did you get those pretty flowers from?"

Seokmin smiles and deep down, he loves talking about his sister's flowers and the fact that she owns her own flower shop. Nothing kicks the smile off his face when he reveals that and all the times he's stepped into the shop to help her out at the cashier or haul in bags of fertilizer or giggle with her when she dusts dirt off his cheeks. Nothing soothes his heart better than all the tales of his parents walking into the shop and sharing a helping hand, whether it's watering the flowers at the front or wrapping up bouquets and pouting at the thorns slicing thin into skin.

And it's the first time he steals a better look at the flowers she picked because most of his time with a bouquet is spent praying he doesn't crush the stem under his hands. Small, baby blue flowers guard the bigger splashes of yellow and white. If he remembers correctly, white gardenias, yellow roses, and periwinkles look up at him for mercy from his lap.

His mother gasps, says they should have visited when they dropped by, but they guess it must be for another time now. When the car slows at a red light, Soonyoung's mother turns to her husband, doesn't lower her voice to ask a soft, "Soonyoung once said Seokmin reminded him of a sunflower, right?"

 

 

It's no question that the first person Seokmin spots through the airport gates is Soonyoung, abandoning his bag once his head turns the right direction and his eyes stop wandering in all the wrong ones. He runs from across the gate and Seokmin glances at his mother waving her hands in the air. It's a loud _thump_  at his ears when Soonyoung collides into his mother, soothing words of "Look at you, Soonyoung, it's like you've grown over there."

His father claps Soonyoung on the back once their arms wind their ways around each other, and Seokmin doesn't step from behind his father out of fear of what Soonyoung might think. They may be breaking something, other than Seokmin's heart, when Soonyoung's smile blooms into something prettier than the flowers at his hands and his eyes melt into something softer than the petals, sharp corners wearing off when he wraps his arms around Seokmin's waist.

He hesitates to bring his hands anywhere further than his pockets but when he feels the warmth of Soonyoung's cheek bathing his chest better than the summer heat, he can't help but give in. His eyes latch onto the fraying bits of his hair under the cap and he freezes up.

"Do you see anything different?" Soonyoung asks once they step back and thanks for the flowers, paints a gentle finger on the petals.

Seokmin plucks the snapback off his head, plops it over his. "Yeah, I noticed," Seokmin smiles, and it grows even more when he catches Chan running across the floor and to his father's arms. "You look really good in blond."

 

 

He can't win against Soonyoung's parents; he learned that the second they load everything into the car and start their way to Namyangju, refusing to allow him to even touch his phone and call his sister to pick him up. Nothing can peel the smile of Soonyoung's face when he occasionally brings the flowers up to his nose, inhales spring in summer. Not even when he sputters around the petals stuck to his lips, around recounting the moments he stepped off the airplane in New York to the second he left American air on airplane maps.

 

 

Soonyoung's mother can't scold her laughter away when Soonyoung opens his bag and "Did you leave your clothes in America?" rings in Soonyoung's apartment when all they find are souvenirs brimmed to zipper teeth in his bag.

In the midst of his father talking about being proud of now owning one of those stereotypical New York t-shirts he sees in movies, a plastic bag on his lap shocks him. He's about to tell Soonyoung that he shouldn't have, but the pads of his thumbs dig into something soft under the rustling wrapper. He unties the knot the second Soonyoung's parents snag at guesses of what's inside th bag, if it's New York all over, the Statue of Liberty printed at the front of a jacket.

"It reminded me of you," Soonyoung says as he pulls out white pajama pants littered in doodles of the sun. The material beats the plush of his pillows and clouds, and he knows that he'll sleep well in these. He thanks Soonyoung for getting him, almost asks how.

 

 

After dinner, at Seokmin's persistent "I don't want to bother you too much," it's Soonyoung's "Stay over" that shuts him up.

"Aren't we-"

"No, we're not."

And he doesn't question it after. He glances down at his jeans and sleeping in them might actually be an option until Soonyoung knocks his shoulder into his, pushes the pajama pants back onto his lap, and says to change into those. Soonyoung's fingers pinch at the material of his jacket, rustling from the sports material, before concluding a quick "Take mine for the night."

When Seokmin returns to Soonyoung's room after washing up and changing into pajamas, bidding Soonyoung's parents a goodnight, Soonyoung sits up on his bed, pats the spot beside him. He takes a couple of hesitant steps before taking the spot, and he watches Soonyoung's hand reach farther than the spot, stops at a shy "Can I hold your hand?"

He nods, reaches over to thread their hand together. "You didn't have to ask," and he wonders what this means for Soonyoung, for the both of them. He shoves those thoughts out of his mind because it's wrong for him to damper down Soonyoung's return. A gentle squeeze, Soonyoung's tiny smile against the white lamplight, Seokmin looks around, notes how narrow the bed is for two people. "I'll take the floor, if you want."

Soonyoung frees his hand, only to drape his blankets over his shoulders and drag him dwon, drag him across the bed. "There's enough room for both of us."

A second punch at his gut settles the damage all over. They've shared beds, they've shared each other's beds in their dorms, but it was never past kisses and coming down from their highs. It was never past the sporadic messages throughout the semester and leaving one bed half-empty before they even catch their breaths.

Soonyoung must have caught onto something when he asks if this is okay, and it punches his gut even more raw and open because they've done this so many times, they've been past this, but why is it so different now? Why does he want to run away now?

His body stiffens when Soonyoung scoots closer, blond hair mixing with black, and hums against his neck. "You're warm," over steady breathing, a single sigh, and "We still have to figure out how I can pay you back for the ticket."

Seokmin yawns the sleep in his eyes. "It can wait until tomorrow."

\----

A knot settles at his throat overnight and stays over the morning, lodges itself into the center of his chest that isn't as hard the side of Soonyoung's face nestled there, breaths brushing across his fingertips. If he can, if he really braved his heart, he would stretch out his fingertips and hope Soonyoung doesn't mind waking up to soft strokes of his fingertips there. An arm around Soonyoung's shoulder and Soonyoung nuzzling even closer, he hopes he doesn't wake up to his heartbeats picking up.

Everything feels like a dream and he wants to run out. This would never happen in the dorms. This would have never happened if Soonyoung's parents never drove the distance and picked him up. This would have never happened if Soonyoung never asked him to stay.

He wonders if this all means anything and if it does, does it mean enough for Soonyoung?

Soonyoung rolls over to the other side of the bed, up against the wall, and he imagines this is what it would look like if either of them stayed after all the times they've asked for each other.

But he stops himself from delving into it anymore because it's too good to be true. He slips off the bed and heads to the bathroom, washes his face, brushes his teeth with the spare toothbrush Soonyoung gave him. He drowns his entire face in cold water if it meant ridding the pink at his cheeks, the curves of his ears.

He's not sure what to do between Soonyoung sleeping and waiting for his sister to arrive in Namyangju. Perhaps sitting at the floor, taking another night of sleep on the floor can help pass time. But when he does head back to the room, Soonyoung's mother calls him over and pats the seat beside her. "Eat with us, Seokmin."

"Soonyoung will wake up later, anyway."

He thanks them before taking the seat besides his mother, and the way Soonyoung's parents' tip their laughs when they mention about oddities of work, how Soonyoung's father doesn't even have to ask his wife before picking up her bowl and scooping more rice for her, reminds him of his own home. Seokmin smiles when his father points a chopstick at him, asks if he can believe such a thing, and he doesn't have the heart to admit he wasn't paying attention because in between, Seokmin glances at a fourth person in the pictures.

His mother's eyes trail his own and she fills in the missing part of their home. Soonhee doesn't live with them; she moved out a few years ago to the States. "She and Soonyoung used to do taekwondo together when they were younger. She teaches it in California now."

Seokmin tucks that piece so far off into his mind that Soonyoung won't know he knows. He doesn't ask any further questions to fill the silence, but he doesn't have to when she pinches Soonyoung's jacket at his shoulders, scolds light around a, "You should eat more, Seokmin. Soonyoung is smaller than you, but you fit in his clothes."

Seokmin chuckles, assures her that he will eat more.

 

 

His mother is right about Soonyoung's mornings. When he catches Soonyoung crossing the hallway for the restroom, the only portions of breakfast left are saved for Soonyoung. He stands up, offers to wash the dishes for his parents, but it's excuses of "You're the guest" and "We'll wash them when Soonyoung is done" dwindled down to "Soonyoung can wash them." Seokmin's only refute for washing dishes for them is because they opened up their home to him for the night and it's only fair that he, _at least_ , cleans the morning up.

They hear the shower run and Seokmin smiles through each of his attempts for his mother to give in and allow him to wash the dishes while Soonyoung showers. Even then, there isn't much to wash and when Soonyoung does step out of the bathroom, hair wet and a slight morning pout greeting him, his mother points at a towel hanging from the fridge and advises Seokmin to wipe his hands there.

Soonyoung scans around the kitchen, lost in his own home, and Seokmin clears up his brain, "I did the dishes while you were in there."

 

 

His mother offers up popsicles after Soonyoung finishes breakfast in the afternoon and they perch themselves on the stairs at the front of the apartment building, watching people stroll by in the summer sun. Their heads follow the kids running after bubbles and their own bubble of silence pops when Soonyoung brings up about repaying for the ticket.

"You don't have to."

"Yeah, I do," Soonyoung's voice hardens. "It's unfair if I just take your money like that."

Seokmin grins at the last drops of his popsicle threatening his thumb sticky. "Well, I have to stop going to the convenience store for my break at work."

"I'll bring you lunch everyday at work, then."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course, I don't mind."

 

 

The apartment abandons lonely for just him and Soonyoung after his father hugs them goodbye before leaving for work and his mother holds each of their faces in her hands, tells Seokmin that it was really nice to meet him, before heading off to her work. They wind up at his bed again and Seokmin pretends to fixate on something out the window because he's not sure what there is to do. And it only breaks when Soonyoung takes his face in his hands, kisses him over and over again, lips slow and foreign, because it's been so long.

But this isn't their dorms in Seoul. There's no urgency, no rush to press hard kisses into necks or streaks of fingertips over unscathed skin. When Soonyoung pulls away and pulls Seokmin even closer, arms slipping around his waist and the side of his face pressing into his chest, Seokmin guards his tiny "I missed you" closer to his heart.

He must be riling his hopes up when he almost echoes the same words out. He dismisses the words as Soonyoung's sleeplessness, of jet lag dragging him first before his own words. So he merely pats a palm at his back, runs an apprehensive palm up and down between the curves of his shoulder blades, and tells him to sleep some more.

Soonyoung rubs his face into Seokmin's chest, refuses that he doesn't want to. "At least let me say goodbye to you and your sister when she picks you up. And give you more pears. My parents have another bag for you and your family in the kitchen."

So he buries Soonyoung in his arms because maybe, if he falls asleep now and stays asleep until later, he won't feel too bad about leaving. But when his sister calls that she'll be starting her way to Namyangju, Soonyoung's head shifts and he blinks even more. He excuses himself up and out of the room and Seokmin follows after a while, out to the smell of brewing coffee, to Soonyoung downing a cup before offering one to him.

 

 

Even after his sister passes another bouquet of flowers for Soonyoung's parents, Seokmin doesn't bother guessing what flowers she prepared because the vase she placed in the flowers in is more of a threat than any help in keeping these flowers save from his clumsy hands. He does like the small pots of succulents, except for the aloe vera stabbing his fingers as she asks Soonyoung if he can tell his parents she dropped these by. Even after they step into the sidewalk and Soonyoung should start catching up to sleep at this side of the world, he watches Soonyoung shrink at the side mirror, waving his hands in the air. He makes out a "Be careful" amidst his "Have a safe trip back home" against waves of summer.

Summer heat can't beat the heat at his cheeks when his sister smirks and asks about this Soonyoung. "Did you really meet him this semester?" He hesitates to nod and his sister glances at him a second, third time. "Are you sure? It's like you guys have known each other forever."

Throughout the ride, his eyelashes flutter at the window, his phone vibrates with pictures of birthday cakes, of Soonyoung and Junhui's birthday celebrations in the States. He feels worse for not knowing it was Soonyoung's birthday, but he didn't know it before everything happened. It must mean he's not breaking a rule but for this reason alone, it might not hurt to bend it.

When he gets home, he settles into the home that is his parents' arms. They ask about the plastic bag in his hand and where he got this new jacket from. He peers down at his chest, notices that it's not his jacket he's wearing.

"I borrowed it from my friend" is bitter at his tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, i'm over here at [ tumblr](http://seokmins-thighs.tumblr.com/), [twitter,](https://twitter.com/leescokmin) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity) if you want to scream at me skldfjdk  
> sorry if this made your eyes bleed, but mayhaps i was too excited to post it to.....edit it


	2. Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello there it's been so long since the first chapter came out but if you read this when it first came out and came back for the second part, thank you so much for your patience ;;  
> so there are no **warnings** for this except a couple of bad words and.......my writing style again lmao i just really wanted to post this chapter :c

A week before the new semester whisks them away under paper crumples and shots of caffeine, Seokmin barely gets through Mingyu's playful scolding of unpacking his clothes and leftover supplies from last semester early. He meanders by his words, though, as he scavenges for his work apron among the boxes and his keys from his pocket, bids him goodbye, that he'll rip open the other boxes when he returns from his shift at the stationary store. He listens to Mingyu jab a huff at him but comply, wish him to bring a cup of coffee on his way back.

And with the promise thrown over his shoulder on his way out, he folds up his apron and tucks it under his arm, picks up his phone to the message from his boss asking him to come in early today, especially with the influx of the classes just around the week's corner. He doesn't mind coming into the earlier shifts, long before his boss's own granddaughter does. It means working against the weather under slow fans of the shop as he hauls in box after box, sings along to the clatter of the box-cutter blade up and down, and the clean slice of tape and breaking cardboard boxes. It means wiping the sweat off his face every once in a while, but he doesn't mind.

Under the sun's cloud at the parking lot, he shrugs his jacket on with the tapering ends of summer heat and fall winds. He passes by his building behind him, about to start past the second, when he hears his name from somewhere. His steps falter for the next as he scans around, looking off and about, to no one who seems to be calling out to him.

"Up here!"

Seokmin snaps his neck for his eyes to scale up the dorm building before him, grimaces against the sunlight bathing his entire vision white and gray for the first second. It's two blurs above him swaying back and forth. He catches a tuft of blond against the sunlight, at Soonyoung waving from stories above the ground.

"Have a good day at work!" from the dead center of the building floors.

The sun sheds off into his smile when he waves long over the crown of his head, hitches into a doubt that Soonyoung can see it, but it's there. But when Soonyoung zips back inside, after a shriek of Junhui's "Get back inside before you fall out, Kwon Soonyoung" beating against the day, he thinks his heart shouldn't weigh so much after everything that happened in the summer, ever since he stayed over at Soonyoung's place.

The summer grips at his throat, the _Maybe I shouldn't have stayed_ , the _We shouldn't have done any of that_  plunging his heart into a pit of anxiety. It suffocates him, the memory of falling asleep on Soonyoung's bed, how it was something more than what they usually throw themselves into during the semester.

It isn't summer vacation anymore. It isn't missing Soonyoung from the summer. It just wasn't Soonyoung.

His eyes his thoughts back to the ground for the day after that, the kiss and the "I missed you" that clung onto the tip of his tongue but just couldn't let go. He just didn't want to ruin what they have now, what they had before the summer. He just doesn't want to hope for something he shouldn't have.

  
At the stationary shop, the doors remain locked an hour before opening. He knocks on the door, the previous bouts of the summer's end trickling off into the smile his boss offers him as he barrels over to unlock it for him.

"Seokmin," is raspy, but that's just how his boss is, "I'm really glad to see you."

  
Not long after switching all the lights on and unlocking the doors, his boss's granddaughter takes hold of the register as the blade under his hand clicks back into place. He straightens back up from behind the counter with a hand at his lower back, brushes off her giggles when he feigns into the ache of an old man waking up his strained muscles.

He turns to the routine ring of the bell, close to greeting whoever walked in. And his heart drops at Soonyoung holding onto a plastic bag ghosting into the shape of plastic containers in one hand and a bottle of water in another.

"Hey," Soonyoung chances out in a breath when he makes it to the front counter. "You left your jacket at my place and took mine."

Seokmin shoves a smile at the memory. As much as he wants to recall it, to think about those summer nights that might not mean anything at all, he doesn't want to think about waking up with Soonyoung in his arms and neither of them leaving into the night or soon after meeting up. Not at work. Not now. Not with Soonyoung right in front of him. And perhaps not ever.

"Did I?" When he nods, accompanies it with a bare lift of his lips back up, "I'll pick it up after work."

After a thanks for the lunch, Soonyoung groans, looks around, and succumbs to the walls and shelves of school supplies. He settles for sticking around to buy some right now because he didn't buy any back at home and he would rather not wait till classes start before getting the bare minimum into his bag. "I might as well."

A "Take your time" wheedles shy from his lips before Soonyoung places the plastic bag at the counter and heads to the front of the shop for a basket. Handle at his elbow, he wanders around the shop, as if it's his first time all over again.

Seokmin excuses himself to bring the bag to the back and with her nod of approval, he heads to the back of the shop and peeks into the plastic bag, sears it open into a sticky note.

_I'm not exactly sure what you like, but I made this for you and I hope you like it_

He opens it up to rolled omelette, a cup of rice, tinfoil housing kimbap. He turns his back to the front of the shop, smiles at the little note and each container tainted in no labels, no expiration date, or company name. It all hints of a meal made from home, made from scratch.

Seokmin thinks to tell him some other time, if he ever does, that he likes it before even stealing a bite of it.

\----

With classes starting in a couple of days, Seokmin finds himself in the crossing-point of Seungcheol and Jeonghan's dorms, sitting slumped against the doorframe. Legs spanning out into the hallway, he never bothers to move his legs back when Wonwoo comes by, plops himself at Seungcheol's door, and leans back enough for his back to find purchase all over Mingyu's.

Jisoo situates himself at the entrance of Jeonghan's dorm, pushing the door all the way to reveal the world of sealed boxes stacked against the wall. Soda cans standing around by each of their thighs, they bask into the world of summers back home.

When they hear a "You started without me?" down the hall, they whip their heads to the right, to Soonyoung hurrying down the hall. Seokmin's breath loses itself at the sight of Soonyoung, at the facade of the Soonyoung he met in the summer and how much the summer in Soonyoung won't ever see the light of day again.

Soonyoung passes by him, feet zigzagging too close to his soda can and Wonwoo's. And Seokmin forgets about the summer this once to lift a hand up, whisper out a, "Watch your step, Soonyoung" that he returns by slipping a hand into his for a fraction of a second before the warmth disappears.

With Junhui, Minghao, and Chan following along, they spill questions about America, the differences between the countries and Jisoo's wonderings about the differences between the coasts of the States.

"I'd love to go there again," Chan voices his daydreams out, words that send Jeonghan ruffling his hair and promising that he will visit America again soon.

  
After bidding everyone goodbye before the afternoon strikes them back to affixing their dorms to somewhat presentable and half-assed livable, Seokmin gets up, looks down at the gentle hold on his hand.

"Seokmin," Soonyoung's whisper tapers off in trepidation, and he wonders what he did wrong this time. Seokmin expects him to want to talk to him, that he wants to cut all of this off, to forget what those last days of summer did to them. "Do you want to eat somewhere?"

"Yeah, sure" stems off from the relief that it isn't what he's thinking about or, at least, not exactly. "Where are we eating?"

When he describes the restaurant at the other side of the city, one that brims in booked schedules down to the minute, Seokmin asks how did he even get a phone call through.

"I made reservations."

"How?" Seokmin scans all over his face, for the joke in his eyes or the falter into a lie at his lips. But it doesn't come. "Why?"

"Just because."

  
He stirs more conscious of his jeans and sweatshirt that presents too far off from the napkins folded into triangles at the table and glimmering silverware. It's the bowties perched at each server's neck and the roll of pressed dress shirts up to their elbows. But then he glances back at Soonyoung's outfit, dawning in the same outfit as him. And when Soonyoung goes to the front desk, asks about his reservation and for coming in a bit early, Seokmin crushes the gasp behind his lips when the host picks up a couple of menus and leads them to a table.

When they sit down and in between Soonyoung's "Don't worry about the price" and "What sounds good to you?" Seokmin wants to combust. The Soonyoung before him reminds him of the Soonyoung in the summer. He wonders why he's doing something different, why Soonyoung is doing this.

After deciding what they want to eat, after the server takes the only source of conversation they could grasp onto since they walked into the restaurant, Seokmin shifts into the awkward silence they dig themselves into.

He feels awful that the first words shared to each other since the server left are Seokmin's own doused in doubts, a "Why are you doing this, Soonyoung?" that barely treks over to the other side of their table.

Soonyoung shrugs. "Mingyu said it's somewhere you've been wanting to go to."

But even with that, he still can't piece it all together, where the sense of that logic is. But he doesn't want to lay a damper in their early evening, not into the rest of their night. After all, Soonyoung reserved for seats in the restaurant, even with the last-minute bustle of spending the summer before classes cut down their words and time.

\----

Mingyu overtakes the desk at the window today. Seokmin doesn't bother asking for the desk for part of the day when he wants to throw his math textbook out the same window. Between the mind-wanderings of why he has to take a math class and Mingyu's "You have to take something of everything," he crumples up the scribbles of paper in his hand and chucks it at Mingyu's face.

It earns a scowl, a low whine from the bottom of his throat, after all the mumbling of terminology Seokmin doesn't want to dip a thought into. But he doesn't care about that, either. He can't look at Mingyu, at the fact that Mingyu talked about him with Soonyoung. He wonders what brought them to revealing that, what surrounded that conversation that led to Soonyoung taking him out somewhere to eat, somewhere he's been wanting to eat.

And he wonders if he did something wrong.

It's been a long while since Soonyoung said anything or even passed a ghost of a message like they always did. After the early-hour dinner at the restaurant he put off heading to for months, he wonders if he broke a rule.

But he settles his mouth sealed. After all, they're friends. That's just what they are, and that's all that they will ever be.

\----

With the class's first-week rush dawning on everyone, it's hard to catch anyone else's face besides his own at the mirror, any of his professors at the front of every lecture hall, and Mingyu's from across the room. He picks up the worry that Soonyoung hasn't been asking if he's free, never did since their last time before the spring semester's end, but he doesn't want to push anything onto him. And these days, work snaps by him on the weekends and when they do, he hates the sigh of relief when the bell rings above the door and it isn't Soonyoung walking in to drop something off for him.

A punch to his gut, and his heart claws open at the seams. Guilt traps him up during the days he doesn't see Soonyoung, that he thinks he can actually _b_ _reathe_  without Soonyoung around.

And the next time he truly sees Soonyoung, at the brink of overlapping first exams, not just in passing from the next building over, it's a tiny wave of his hand, an odd quirk of his lips, and he's gone.

\----

Their dorms reside across each other and they have way to many growing connections now with friends to not know where Soonyoung is. A week simmered since the last time he's seen Soonyoung, has even heard his name from his friends, and everything doesn't sound right. He's unsure as to why the need to see Soonyoung bubbles up when this whole time, his subconscious tells him to avoid him.

Maybe he just feels even more awful doing so.

Rain tatters the windows to a close and the lights to a mere dim. The weather pours a sheet across the city and passing through the halls, there's still one face he can't find among ajar doors and elevator trips. The entirety of dorm floors singes quiet the whole night, and there's no saving exception when he knocks on each of his friend's doors.

"Hey, have you seen Soonyoung?"

"No, sorry, Seokmin."

"Was Soonyoung here?"

"Not that I know of."

"Do you know where Soonyoung went?"

"Seokmin, I just woke up."

It startles something across Junhui's face when he knocks at his door to ask. Just when his roommate is his last resort, Junhui shakes his head, admits Soonyoung didn't tell him if he was going out of university grounds today.

He pulls up his phone on his walk back to his dorm. A simple hello, a drop of his whereabouts would have been nice, whether it was directly towards himself or for the guys. He calls Soonyoung and the sound once he picks up the call twists his stomach. Frays of his voice amidst the rain, drowns in the boom of thunder, and a word from him drops into the mute when Seokmin picks up a sniff and he tells Soonyoung, "Stay there, I'm coming to get you."

  
Raindrops distort the world into grays and blacks, stops him from parking anywhere closer to the dance studio unless he wants to step into puddles gathering like swimming pools. In the break of Seoul, he huffs the frustration when he can't pinpoint any life outside his car. But when his eyes fall on a bench saved under the wavering light, he swings his car door open, grabs his umbrella, and rushes out.

Soonyoung's eyes wash down into pinks than whites and through rain and sniffs, heavy sighs and a sharp inhale against yellow fluorescence seeping all over his skin, he's not sure if he should ask what's wrong. His hands twist the umbrella, and he shuffles over, sit besides Soonyoung when he hasn't moved a centimeter. He can't even remember why he wanted to see Soonyoung, what brought him to search all around for him.

"I brought you an umbrella" may not be the top of what he should say right now, but it's something when Soonyoung nods, avoids his eyes but focuses on the bouncing of his knee.

"Can you bring me back?" whimpers weak into the drops all around. "Can you take me back to my dorm?"

Seokmin watches the breaths fog over his lips and he nods, says of course. He opens his umbrella and waits for Soonyoung to stand up beside him and walk inside. The shudder of the umbrella against the wind takes them back to his car and Seokmin follows him down to the passenger's side, opens it up.

"You can go first," he mumbles and after closing the door, he hurries over to the other side.

Drumming of precipitation and lingerings of the thunderstorm joins in with their unspoken. He switches the heater in the car, takes in the tremble of Soonyoung's shoulder and the sway of his body forward, as if encasing the car's warmth into the center of his being, as if curling up into a ball to avoid the sound of Seokmin's words. After a couple minutes, he leans back, tugs the sleeves of his winter jacket over his fingertips, and pink rushes back to his cheeks.

"Is your seatbelt on?" Seokmin asks, placing a hand on the steering wheel.

Soonyoung smirks, all tired and discursive against the tears or raindrops at his cheeks, and clicks the seatbelt.

They call the rain to drive their conversation without a syllable. It's only when they reach the last stop light before the university do either of them say anything.

Soonyoung's lips part, the smallest sound scraping by, but Seokmin shakes his head, catches his lips closing back up from the corner of his eye.

"You don't have to say anything."

  
Back in the dorms, elevator doors shut off the rain beating down on the city. He waits behind Soonyoung until the door opens and Junhui traces out the rain plastered on him like another layer of skin. But when Soonyoung heads inside, Junhui steps outside until a single step marks between them, shoulders leaning on the closed door.

Seokmin searches the hallway for something to say and something to look at that isn't the floor and Junhui's slippers. Arms wind their ways around his shoulders, cuts off his air for a second. And he lifts his arms up a slight, not knowing what's going on, but he embraces Junhui just as tight.

"Thank you for finding him," Junhui whispers, dithers at his hood and neck. Junhui pulls back, fingers still lingering onto Seokmin's own. "Did he tell you anything?"

Seokmin shakes his head, admits Soonyoung looked like he was about to tell him something, "But I don't have to know."

\----

The idea of practice evades into the sloth part of his personality. Winter must be cursing his entire body too early into the year because when he tries to warm up his voice in the shower, squeals of the faucet beats the volume out the croaks in his voice. He doesn't have to go today, but he does need to go to work.

  
Two in the afternoon welcomes him with a rare bell above the door at this weather. At the thrust of the door open, he blinks blank at Soonyoung's, "Sorry, I'm late."

It might have been months since Soonyoung last dropped anything off, and his brain held his logic certain that the deal was over with a long time ago. Out of any day he decided to return with a lunch, it has to be a rainy day.

A thermos taps onto the counter besides Seokmin's hand. "Jihoon, my other friend, he's getting down with something, too." Soonyoung unscrews the cap and they watch steam tendrils parade around the rim. "So here, drink this. You'll feel better." With the warning of the taste but the promise of vitality into his vocal cords, Seokmin winces and promises he'll drink some when he heads to the back.

A lunch bag winds its way on the counter by the thermos. A bottle of water engulfs one side of the bag and when Soonyoung opens it up, a couple containers and a bag of cough drops reside inside. Seokmin smiles, thinks Soonyoung really didn't have to.

  
At the end of his shift, the weather settles to a merciful patter. Above the rain, he convinces himself his mind is fooling with him when he think he catches Soonyoung in the cafe across the street, laughing along with Junhui. He wouldn't want to cut the vibes of the conversation but when he starts pulling his keys out and refolding his apron slipping past his shoulder, he hears the boom of his name through the street and rain. He looks back to the cafe, at Soonyoung waving at him from the front of the doors. It's a single wave of his hand over to the cafe, and Seokmin jogs across the street.

Soonyoung's voice is light at his ears when he opens the door for him. "After you."

\----

Fragments of looming winter days start to feel sorry for them and settle more friendly to their systems. A scarf around Seokmin's neck and a thick jacket guarding Soonyoung, it's all warm but the air between them stings cold, even when they head up to Seokmin's dorm. Nine in the evening is an early hour for anyone in the university, but he's surprised no one's running outside to head inside. The quiet slits at his mind even more, but the question of breaking a rule, anything between them twists at his guts tangled. Seokmin isn't sure if he wants to stay around any longer when an answer doesn't come right away.

He's thankful Mingyu headed off to a late-night study group in the library but maybe if Mingyu declined that study group, he wouldn't have to face Soonyoung's answer to his question. He stands from the desk's chair to shut the curtains from the ghosts of a passing autumn. He tells Soonyoung to sit on his bed, somewhere more comfortable than shivering in the center of the dorm.

Soonyoung shakes his head; at his offer or at the question, perhaps both or perhaps neither. His lips almost refuse to part through the, "No, you didn't." And when they do part a slight, he shuts them back up.

"You can tell me anything," streamlines out of Seokmin without a thought. He brushes it off quick, "Is something bothering you?"

The sound of Soonyoung's throat closing up slaps him hard. "I just-I don't think we can be friends anymore." The words don't spare a second to register what it means when Soonyoung starts rubbing harsh at his eyes and their movement halts altogether. The words crush something in his chest, and he just wants more time for this to sink in, but Soonyoung presses on. "When I went abroad, I-I was stressed out from practice, so I-I did it with someone there," a sob wracks into the air, "I don't want to say who it was because it wasn't his name I said. It was _yours_."

He watches Soonyoung's shoulders shrivel up more from his sobs and the occasional gasp for air. "I know I broke a rule, I know we're just friends, and we barely know anything about each other, but I've been feeling so bad for doing this to both of you, even if we're not like...even if we're not like _that_."

The Soonyoung he knows falls apart before him. He doesn't blame Soonyoung for anything; they're nothing more than friends, they're nothing more than that. It's what they agreed with, and Soonyoung isn't tied to him in anyway.

The words kick into the tip of his tongue, wants to latch on, but he lets them go. The summer takes something in him, and he doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't spare half a thought when he threads his fingers into Soonyoung's, feels the edges of his palms flinch into his, whispers a, "Is this okay?" Silence answers him, but he fills up the void, anyway. "Hey, I know we're only friends, but you're still important."

He shakes his head, almost seems to knock his entire skull off his neck when he chokes even more. "I didn't think you were going to mean so much to me."

The words hitch Seokmin's lungs, and the rush of Soonyoung's eyes across his face startles him out of his trance of staring at him. His mind refuses to put the words together, to put the underlying words together, and he wonders what this is supposed to mean.

The swallow lumps in Soonyoung's throat and he watches him trouble to keep his lungs quiet. He shifts to face him, run a smooth thumb over the back of his palm. "Can you take a deep breath for me, Soonyoung?" And when Soonyoung does, Seokmin stutters around knowing they agreed to be friends, to not know so much about each other than friends wouldn't know, but his better judgement abandons him at the last second, allows the "I want to know more about you."

He rips out his thoughts in the open. He wants to know about the Soonyoung who dances till the middle of the night, the one who came from Namyangju, who inherited his entire smile from his mother. He want to know about the Soonyoung that Chan looks up to and the same one who took taekwondo with his sister and, "That's all I know about you, but I want to know more" to escape.

Soonyoung gapes, tear curving down his cheek. "Didn't you just break a rule?"

Seokmin chuckles at the surprise all over his face. And his mind relays into the summer and all he learned about Soonyoung in a span of a single day. "Weren't they broken a long time ago?"

The smile revives some of the air back into his lungs when Soonyoung leans forward, warm breath comforting his neck. "I don't want to rush this, though."

"It's okay, I'll wait," Seokmin whispers, slipping his arms around his shoulders. "I'll be here when you're ready."

He pulls Soonyoung under his arms even more, revels in the chuckle waking up goosebumps all over his skin.

  
Soonyoung refuses to let his hand go when he says he should start heading back to his dorm. Even at Soonyoung's door, Seokmin plays with his hand, traces indecipherable shapes between the lines, and it elicits the softest sound from Soonyoung's lips.

But he steps closer to the door because they really should get going and Soonyoung told him five seconds ago that he has to rise early tomorrow for classes.

Seokmin bids him a goodnight, a "Sweet dreams," and a second doesn't pass for Soonyoung to play with a grin above puffy eyes and bid him the same wishes back. Footsteps don't resound at his ears right away, not with Soonyoung's promise of heading straight to bed once he steps inside.

He follows that promise to a dot, pulls his keys out without a racket of the key into the slot. He turns the doorknob, but the door doesn't creak open.

Instead, he turns around, anxiety gnawing at his lower lip. He takes a step forward towards him, and Seokmin doesn't flinch at the spot.

It's the smallest "Can I kiss you?" from Soonyoung that brings him to his tiptoes and a peck of innocence at their lips.

\----

Midterms enshrouds the entire campus in a kind of monochrome they don't know they will ever escape. Even at the stationary shop, he catches dark bags under almost every customer's eyes, and he's sure they're all students needing their stationary fix for the exams. He tries not to bring the lack of colors past the shops and lecture halls because even with the black ink coursing down to the tips of his fingers, the whites of stapled packets, and grays of winter, he starts learning the colors of Soonyoung.

He learns about the pink at his cheeks when spicy food slips into his lips in an accident, and he promises not to force him to eat anything that will burn his tongue. He learns about the yellows and greens of highlighters across his pages, the rainbow dashes and stick figures in this one notebook he keeps hidden of the choreography he hopes to share with the world when he's ready. He learns the blues of Soonyoung's test anxiety that's different from his own. It's the kind that, sometimes, he doesn't bother studying at all when he knows he should be.

When Soonyoung invites him to his dorm for the first time to study, knowing full-on the effects of exams on Seokmin, he's surprised to see a cleared desk and a laptop propped up there instead. With a flood of movie titles all over the screen, Seokmin tells him to surprise him. Ease creeps up into the corners of their lips, just for a second into the first movie, when he lift a hand to his chest, pad of his finger hovering over his heart and the warmth of Soonyoung's shoulder against his arm.

"'Cross my heart and hope to die,'" their whisper overlaps with the movie, and it feels like summers ago. The smile between them breaks into a fit of giggles at the flip of the blank adventure book. But within a few more minutes into the movie, he confesses he might not handle anywhere past the purple and maroon hand prints on the mailbox.

When the grays of the season drip into Soonyoung's dorm, he asks if they can do something else, but "Thank you for doing this." Seokmin doesn't lift his eyes up, just soaks in the warmth of Soonyoung's palm against his at his lap. "Thank you for spending time with me."

"I hope it helped somehow."

"It really did." Seokmin peers up for the first time to the falter of a smile across his lips and up to his eyes. But his silence gnaws at the both of them. He leans in closer before space runs out, traces out the second falter of his lips and the flicker of tears at his eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Are you mad at me?" spits out into the open.

"No, not at all." He knows he's asking about the summer. Because they weren't anything more than friends that time. There's nothing that should be holding him back in the summer, and Seokmin hates it more that he was one of those things. He tries to revive the same smile on Soonyoung's face. A peck at his lips, another at his cheek, at the middle of his forehead all don't suffice.

A hand presses his chest back and his heart drops at the tears down Soonyoung's cheeks, that he _cried_ when he kissed him. A crack settles into his voice, "Are you really not?"

"I'm not," and he wishes Soonyoung would know that.

Words refuse to leave their lips when Seokmin sits back on his bed, legs flat out and knocking their toes together. Soonyoung's eyes confine themselves their hands at his thigh. A sniff or two--it might have been from Seokmin or both of them--keeps them company into the minutes.

And Soonyoung leaning over over, landing a kiss at his jaw, keeps them company for the rest of the night.

It blooms into his lips down Soonyoung's neck that gives into the sighs living off the skin he traces against the tip of his nose, Soonyoung's fingers carding hard through his hair. It's Seokmin marking up his neck and Soonyoung whining about slipping his fingers under his shirt but not taking it off. And eventually, it's both of them bare on the bed, air managing to find ways into Soonyoung's lungs under him.

"Is this okay?" Soonyoung asks, and dips of the mattress seem farther away when he searches for his hand. "Can we still do this?"

Seokmin nods, says it's okay. He sits back on his knees, stares down Soonyoung--from the red littered across his neck, the way his chest rises and drops without even touching him, goosebumps waking all over his skin. He brings a hand to Soonyoung's neck and down to his chest, watches his eyes screw shut. Seokmin leans forward, too close, and all he feels is the tremble of Soonyoung's breath over his lips.

He cracks his eyes open and finally steadies his breathing to a whisper, "I think you're beautiful."

The words kick something in him to lean even closer, kiss him slow like time doesn't mean a thing, and slip his hand lower this time.

\----

Post-midterm season means hurrying over to the bustling mall in an excuse to treat themselves for even surviving past holding the pencil in their hands. With every shop luring each one of them into separate directions, debates of the cake shop or the snapback store, they all agree to split up and take their own ways through the mall. They'll meet up at the restaurant down the street for dinner, like they always do.

But something out of the ordinary is Seokmin following Soonyoung to the shoes at the other end of the mall.

"You don't have to go with me," Soonyoung chuckles when he hurries over, threads their fingers together and palms pressed. "I'll be quick to find a new pair."

But five boxes stack at the bench where Seokmin waits for him. When Soonyoung poses in front of the mirror at the floor, he asks how they look, if the colors are flashy or if they match just right with every other thing he has in his closet.

"I think it brings out your eyes," Seokmin nods through his words without a thought.

But it earns a snort from Soonyoung, weakens him to doubling over and clutching onto his stomach. He reaches over from the bench to pull him closer, and he leans his head at the small of Soonyoung's back.

"My eyes are up here, not down there," barely makes its way once the highs of the laughter anchors them back to reality.

\----

The click of the stapler in his hand satisfies the rest of his week as he staples his study guide together. He has the desk for tonight, with Mingyu snoring beside him long into one in the morning, and he wants to use as much of his days as he can. He knows Mingyu will let him steer far from their promise of alternating who gets the desk when, but he wants to keep it fair. He yawns into his fist as he dodges paper cuts from stuffing the packet into his folder and reconsiders moving some topics to another day.

He stands up to crack his spine, stretch out the terms at his fingertips and the frustration from his hair. Just when he's about to turn the desk light off and call it a night, a knock cuts off that thought all at once.

At the door, eye bags dig into Soonyoung, but the adrenaline of the dance competition still surges like a hot wire in his veins. The "We won, Seokmin" stops him from thinking twice as he stumbles out of his dorm, bathes his palm in the sweat of Soonyoung's own, as he tugs him out into the hall with a silly question.

"Can I have this dance?" can't punch the smile off his face.

Seokmin finds it a bit weird, maybe leaning more towards embarrassing, if he splays himself honest in the open, because they should be quiet and there's no music to waltz with them in this hour. But Seokmin pulls him close, steps forward to place a hand on Soonyoung's hip and another to hold his hand above their shoulders. The slow glide in the slumbering halls breaks a grin between them but after some swaying, Soonyoun tugs his hand away to slip them around Seokmin and meet at the small of his back.

A press of Soonyoung's cheek to his chest before he pulls back, he wonders what he digs out of the deep pockets of his sweatpants. A ruffle of paper trails down the halls and Soonyoung asks him to open his hands up. With one quick snap of his hand into the air, he unloads the small paper bag into his palms, and all Seokmin can pick up on are the flicker of hallway lights against metal--enamel pins of trees, petals, cityscapes amidst the "I picked these for you at the competition." After poking a finger into each of the shiny surfaces, smiles at the pink with the competition's name, he's about to thank Soonyoung for getting him so much when he didn't ask for anything, but another yawn takes him under.

He catches the frown in Soonyoung. "Sorry for waking you up, though. You should go back to sleep." His blinks fall out languid when he doesn't even correct him, that he was just getting ready for bed and he was awake this whole time, when he feels his hand curl over his, to close the open space of the pins with his finger. "I'll tell you all about it in the morning."

A lazy grin shocks in a bigger smile when Soonyoung's eyes meet at his level and the kiss is over before it registers to him. Soonyoung turns to head down to the elevator and he wishes he could have realized the kiss the first time. He steps forward, takes his hand in his before he's too far from his reach. A quick tug towards his direction and his other hand seething hot against Soonyoung's cheek, he brings his lips down to Soonyoung's. He feathers a finger at the blush across the skin of his neck, more from the kiss than the swig of victory.

"I'll see you later, then," barely captures into the air between them.

\----

Clouds of sunlight blares against his eyes as bands of white greet him in the morning. He peers over to the nightstand and the blare becomes more subtle at the edges when they fall on the pins. He pokes at each one of them, now that his brain jostles his entire being awake, and pictures Soonyoung picking them out for him at the competition. His eyes fall a second time on Mingyu jerking at the sound of his alarm, and he tosses his blanket over his eyes when his roommate starts mumbling words he's never heard of, between the "Who the fuck decided it's okay to have Friday classes?" and "Sorry for waking you up, Seokmin."

With the "It's okay, Mingyu" croaky out his lips and Mingyu announcing that he'll get going, he isn't expecting another sound to come out from the door other than the click of the handle shut. But after a string of knocks, he wonders if Mingyu is playing with him when the next sound after the knock is, "Hi, Soonyoung."

He whips the blanket away from his eyes to shed the haze of the early morning into Soonyoung running sleepy fingers over sleepy bed hair before pulling his hood up, _Seokmin's_  hood up. He picks up the grin, though, when Soonyoung shares one with him to bid Mingyu a good luck in his class. With Mingyu gone and the hallway empty, he opens up the blankets to allow Soonyoung in. But he perches himself at the end of his bed, and it's not enough.

"I was just thinking about you," Seokmin sighs through the sleep. "Are you reading my mind?" He opens his arms up but protests of not having showered yet after the performance muddles mute. "I don't care, Soonyoung."

Because what he cares more about is the morning giggles against his neck when he pulls Soonyoung under his arms and deep beneath the sheets, through the tangle of their legs and over the snooze of his alarm twice.

\----

With prices rising a notch for the dorms and the fact that he doesn't even have a kitchen in this darn place, Seokmin reconsiders staying in the dorms for the next semester. He wonders if an apartment somewhere would treat him much better. It might mean hiking up his card for trips to the gas station and clocking in more hours at the stationary shop. It might mean being some distance away from his friends than what he's been used to the past semesters. It might mean calling his sister to ask about his decision, about how, in the long run, the apartment might be a much better option.

He thinks Soonyoung is lost in his notes, taking up the desk at the window for today and making sure he doesn't knock Mingyu's stack of sticky notes over. And it stirs something in him when Soonyoung doesn't even lift his eyes up to him when he considers, "Maybe we can move into one together."

\----

"Close your eyes and hold out your hand."

Seokmin turns in his seat. With Mingyu giving up his day on the desk to take one at the study session, the action alone sends the notches in his spine crackling all at once. He wonders what it is, but he doubts it's anything that won't surprise him. It's from Soonyoung, after all.

When he swivels in the chair to face Soonyoung, his hands cling behind his back with a knit at his lips. Soonyoung tilts his head to the side, expecting him to follow his words, but he huffs and surrenders his hands to send them facing up. He closes his eyes, warns Soonyoung about a possible slap to his jaw or a kick at his knee if he plants a bug onto his hand.

But instead, something cold bathes across his palms. When he opens his eyes, a silver key digs lonesome into the lines of his palms.

"What is this?"

"It's a key."

Seokmin reaches over, smacks a feather at his arm and reaches even more from his seat when Soonyoung tries to avoid the smack. "I'm serious, Soonyoung. What is this?"

"It's a key," he reiterates, "a key to an apartment."

"When was this?" Seokmin babbles, because he never thought Soonyoung would take it under his hands to do something like this for him. "How is this possible? How did you know?"

"Well," Soonyoung scratches the back of his neck, "we're sharing the place with Wonwoo and Mingyu, and it was their idea. But we'll have our own room, the two of us, if you don't mind, and they'll have their own room, too."

Soonyoung's hand blurs at his periphery, and he doesn't realize he still hasn't blinked the tears at his eyes or the fingertip grazing his cheek, smearing the tear right off.

\----

With the end of finals nearing for most of their friends, Seokmin and Soonyoung are the lucky two who don't suffer exams on a Friday. Mingyu waves Seokmin off that morning, bidding him to check out the apartment and that he and Wonwoo will follow once they both finish their exams and perhaps, pick up food on the way there.

And Seokmin isn't expecting much for the apartment. It's small, empty at the moment, but it's all they need. The room saved for Seokmin and Soonyoung lives off a window greeting by the winter city streets. Besides the closet that can hold more than what they can ask for, there isn't anything else. He's not sure where to start on furniture, but he takes this moment to tug Soonyoung's hand in his and they stand with the corners of their shoulders pressing before sliding down against the wall.

"What do you want to get first?"

Soonyoung purses his lips, almost too deep into thoughts. But the thought doesn't strike deep enough, not even scraping the surface. "We can be minimalist and buy nothing."

He rolls his eyes, chuckles more at the knock of his own shoulder to the side against Soonyoung's. "Or we can let Wonwoo and Mingyu decide for us."

\----

His spine burns to the ends of the earth as his mind wakes up. He runs a hand over his face at winter's sunlight dwindling through the branches. When he opens his eyes, his heart leaps for a second, wondering where his bed went and where Mingyu's has gone and most importantly, where Mingyu is. But the pressure at his outstretched arm, the fingertips brushing across his palm, the tension eases out at the sight of Soonyoung's back and the never-ending ceiling.

Relief saturates the empty room and even more empty walls when he remembers the agreement with Mingyu and Wonwoo last night, that he and Soonyoung can spend the night in the apartment because neither of them had finals nor have work the next morning. He turns to his side, traces the slope of Soonyoung's side rising and falling and past the bands and frays of hair, Soonyoung's hand placed right over his palm.

He treads a squeeze of his hand, a bare curl of his fingers around Soonyoung's, and the light action alone sends a groan out of him. Before he turns around, he pictures the morning scowl on his face, the crush of his eyes to get rid of early-morning blindness. But it whirs all away when he does turn, shuffles closer to Soonyoung, and his eyes flutter shut at the warmth of Soonyoung's lips gentle at the base of his neck.

He pulls back a slight to give him space to breathe, to give himself sight of a fool's smile across his face.

"What's with the smile?" Seokmin asks with one of his own.

Soonyoung scrunches his face, eventually scrunches his eyes shut. "No reason."

\----

The junction of winter and spring barely greets him with a small cupcake on his bed, the red thing popping against the whites of the uncertainty between the seasons. It barely stretches past the size of a poker chip, barely big enough to not be covered by the sticky note secured to the plate under. He blinks more at Soonyoung's fingers reaching up and threading through his hair, along with the desire to soothe against the gesture and the wish for him to get the message without any words.

A sleepy grin among the slur of "I dreamed about you last night," Seokmin asks if the dream treated him with care.

Soonyoung nods, cheek rubbing against the pillow. "It feels like I didn't wake up."

He grimaces at the cheesiness of the answer, goosebumps paving down his skin because of those words. He accepts it, anyway, especially when Soonyoung giggles under his arms, tumbles of his voice pressed to his collarbone, snakes over his shoulder, and he brings his lips to his temple, at his forehead.

Seokmin rolls over on his back when he picks up something else on the nightstand.

_Happy birthday!_  
_-Love, Soon_

Soonyoung anchors himself to his side as he reaches over his chest and across the ebd, a hand grabbing into the void for the nightstand, before groaning around a, "Here, try some."

A quiet thank you for the birthday surprise, a question of when he baked this, Soonyoung's scowl of the morning softens at his question. "Mingyu helped me bake it this morning."

  
With Hansol's birth anniversary just a year after his, they find the closest barbecue place their wallets won't mind breaking open just for tonight. With too few seats around a single table, a server suggests to send the entire group to the dining area with a second and maybe a third table with still too few seats. Seokmin pouts at the rest of them sitting down, but he smiles when Soonyoung stands up, pats his seat, graces a mirror his own through the "Here, take my seat" and the promise of finding another somehow.

And with all the guys around him, he relaxes once Soonyoung does find that other seat, once his hand slips into his under the table's edge.

\----

He exhales harsh at the lanyard hanging from the coat hanger, and he questions to himself if Soonyoung forgot to grab it today in a frenzy to make it to class on time. With Seokmin not having a class today but hours dedicated for the stationary shop, he thinks he won't make it in time to catch the door unlocked for him. He pulls the key out of the ring and heads outside the apartment. He tucks the key between the floor and the mat, stuffs it right when the metal hits the press of the flower pot.

_10:10_  
**_Seokmin_ **  
_The key is under the mat_

He heads back inside, searches around for his apron and a jacket warm enough to to last him the entire day. He gets through his thirty for the day with a lunch Soonyoung packed for him in the morning when his phone vibrates across the break table in the back of the shop.

_14:42_  
**_Mingyu_ **  
_Why is the key under the mat??_  
_There's a keycode for a reason_

He chokes around the rice at his throat, takes a second to pause and allow the bites to go down.

_14:43_  
**_Soonyoung_ **  
_It's okay_  
_I'll use the keycode_

_14:43_  
**_Seokmin_ **  
_I'll meet you halfway?_

_14:44_  
**_Soonyoung_ **  
_At the pancake stand?_

_14:44_  
**_Seokmin_ **  
_At the pancake stand_

\----

The dust bites at his nose when he sits down at the back of inventory with the phone at his ear and the cupped palm under the receiver. His shoulders cave into the phone, and he wonders why the world thinks it's okay for his mother to get sick and sick enough to rush her to the hospital. He listens to his sister's voicemail a third time to let reality sink in and even when his sister assures him that their mother will be okay, Seokmin can't stop the scatter of his fingertips over the counter for nearly dropping coins of a customer's change, watching the clock count down to his last minutes to his shift. He can't help the guilt of being so far away from his mother at such a time.

So when Soonyoung drops by with the lunch bag, he musters the best smile he can. But he falls flat when Soonyoung scans his face, drops the smile from his lips, and whispers a, "Is everything okay?"

  
With an okay from his boss and Soonyoung passing the keys over to him, street lines start to blur and he can't tell if the white lines dot between his tires or if he's driving in the right line. He shoves the tears back with an inhale when they stop at the intersection where the pancake stand resides just a few more steps deeper into the sidewalk, the trademark landmark halfway between their apartment and university.

He hates the silence. And he's more than relieved that Soonyoung is the one to break it this once.

"Pull over," he mutters once the light flips green. "Let me drive for a while."

He turns over to Soonyoung, the tears still blurring the outline of his hair and cheeks but fail to smudge out the tears at his own eyes and down his cheeks.

At the front of a convenience store, he opens the car door, believes he's just going to sit down and allow Soonyoung to drive the rest of the way home, until the world suffocates him and he feels like the smallest person under Soonyoung's arms. His fingertips grip onto the back of his jacket, nail beds scraping into the cloth, and nothing stops the sob from escaping into Soonyoung's neck.

"It'll be okay, Seokmin," Soonyoung's whisper trembles. "Your mom will be okay."

"D-don't worry about my mom," Seokmin whimpers out as he pulls back, about to wipe the lines of his eye when Soonyoung's hand beats him to it. "You have enough to worry about."

His keys disappear from his hand and jingles from Soonyoung's. When he plops into the passenger's seat, he sighs, wonders if he can catch a visit to the hospital tomorrow morning or tonight at the earliest. A couple of blocks down one street, a missed turn or two, he speculates which way is the longer way home, at the possibility of Soonyoung doing this to avoid Wonwoo and Mingyu's probing questions of the pink at his cheeks and the wet streaks down his cheeks.

But the speculations cut off futile when taking the longer way home might mean driving down a different route to another home. "Soonyoung, where are you going?"

"Yongin," spills out of his lips without a second thought. "You should go see her."

\----

Seokmin crosses his arms over his chest and with the baby blue pajamas and early bed hair, huge white shirt shrinking his size to much smaller than Soonyoung, it probably isn't as menacing as he hopes it will be. But when Chan slipped the pamphlet to him this morning under Soonyoung's eyes and another foreign institution lining up the pristine logo, he can't let Soonyoung let hesitate for the chance.  
  
"You have to go this time."

  
And that night, his name echoes across the apartment, calling him over to their room. Soonyoung pats the edge of their bed beside him, hangs onto the question of what this is for. But the soft plush of white fur pokes behind his back and he smiles before Soonyoung even starts his, "I want you to have this while I'm away."

And Seokmin pulls the oversize hamster plushie to his chest, pulls in the reminder of Soonyoung under his arms. He hugs it, mumbles a, "It looks so much like you" against the top of his head. He brings himself back to lay the pillow-sized hamster on his lap, and the close of his eyes for the smile reminds him too much of Soonyoung.

"I didn't put a microphone or camera in it, if that's what you're wondering," Soonyoung deadpans in the quiet.

But that's not what trailed Seokmin's mind at all, landing a bare smack of his hand at Soonyoung's arm, and the realization that in a couple of weeks, he won't be able to do that. He goes back to flattening the hamster on his lap to thumb the tear off his eye.

Arms around his shoulders, a knock back into the mattress with the hamster between them, Soonyoung's voice wanes in a, "I'm gonna miss you, Seokmin" that he returns this time.

\----

And they do something about the time difference; it's something they never dipped a consideration into until Seokmin called him in the middle of his break and woke Soonyoung up in the middle of his night, not long after he went to sleep but too long before he had to wake up. He spat out apologies, spat out the forgetfulness of the ocean and the hours, but they all simmer down with a croaky "It's okay" from Soonyoung.

Seokmin tells himself his apologies were forgiven, if Soonyoung even accepted having apologies about the mismatched hours in the first place.

With a new shipment of letter paper and envelopes, some of his nights closing up the shop means going through each design, wondering which one Soonyoung would appreciate and which ones Soonyoung would laugh at. And each night, he promises to his boss that locking up is not a problem at all, counting the money by himself in the middle of the night is no big deal, and he would love to stock up the new shipments tonight instead of breaking their eyes open more than their backs in the early next day.

But when Seokmin sits down at their new desk against the wall, with Mingyu's prying of the letter and Wonwoo's offer to help with the words, every word he stumbled upon his life evaporates off the surfaces of his brain, the depths of his knowledge, and he wonders how he managed to get by this far to make it into university.

\----

"Did you get my letter?" Seokmin beams the next time they video call. It's been a week since he dropped the envelope into the mailbox, littered in stickers but holding a single sheet of paper. He catches the creaks of the bunk above Soonyoung's head, barely brushes the hood of his sweatshirt, of Seokmin's sweatshirt he threw in because if Soonyoung gave him a hamster to hug every night, he has to find something for him to hug every night, too.

It breaks the calm from his face, shatters the world with a smile against the dark pit of the bottom bunk. "I think sending a piece of paper that says _How are you doing?_  was odd when you do that every time we call."

\----

The day before Soonyoung returns from New York, Seokmin's day is spent swatting at his sister's fingers plucking for his hair. The sweat down his neck, the awful stickiness of the heat, and his sister's offer to pay for his haircut coaxed him into sitting at the driver's seat and following her words down to the salon and how many years it has been since he last cut his hair, since they both walked into the salon to get a haircut together. She promises a bouquet for the airport tomorrow, that Seokmin has to hide his face behind the bouquet to surprise Soonyoung if he wants a big bouquet.

Seokmin nearly slams on the breaks for the heat lathering up his neck, more from her suggestion than the summer's end. He shakes his head at her idea; it might not mean much, anyway.

\----

Long after promising Soonyoung's parents and his own parents that the drive from Yongin to Incheon to Namyangju won't burn him too bad, Seokmin finds himself stepping side to side to avoid crashing into other people and pushcarts at arrivals. He ensures the bouquet at his hand stays in his hand, that the mousse his sister helped him out this morning stays in his hair and keeps the shorter fringe from his face.

And after the warmth of Soonyoung against his chest washes familiar and real to him, " _Wow_ " winds across his lips from Soonyoung's whisper. It slaps a blush all over him, slaps the flowers up to his face to cover from the scrunch of Soonyoung's smile, the glitter all over his eyes.

  
Back in Soonyoung's apartment, Seokmin doesn't even last five minutes unto his home before he has to find a spot somewhere to place all the bags of pears, somewhere he will remember to pick them up when he goes back home. He watches Soonyoung laugh at his misery when his mother brings up another bag behind the counter, and he can't stop himself from accepting another when his father joins in, too. After another round of comforting his worries about staying over, that it just means they can give him more pears tomorrow, he chuckles at Soonyoung's search for a pair of sweatpants that will fit him, the apology that he didn't buy any sun pajamas at New York this time.

And once they change out, Seokmin perches himself at the edge of his bed, hugs himself in one of Soonyoung's rare sweatshirts that sling two or three sizes too big for him. Soonyoung slips onto the bed beside him, pushes himself to lean against the wall, and Seokmin follows suit. His questions wander about the States this time, if anything changed since the last time, and the "You can put my letter down, Soonyoung."

A nervous chuckle from his lips at the envelope protecting a single piece of paper with a single sentence in his hand, he places it on the nightstand with a groan. And after settling back, Seokmin _knows_  he should feel awful for not hanging onto most of his words about the flights and his stays in the dormitories there. He feels awful because not long after Soonyoung starts talking about the program itself, the stage and the empty seats that didn't remain that way once the students from other countries entered the theater, he blanks out a, "What?"

He shrugs, pokes around the strands aiming for Soonyoung's eyes. With the memory of the bleach stinging at his scalp more than the memories, he thinks Soonyoung's features soften out with his natural hair. "Nothing," he mumbles." He drops his hand from Soonyoung's temple to his cheek, runs a thumb under his eye, and he doesn't think into his next thought. "It's just-have I ever told you that I love you?"

The smile caves into his palm, and Soonyoung lifts a hand over his own. "No, I don't think so." He blinks, wonders if he really never did. His lips drop, but Soonyoung revives it with a smile of his own. "But you don't have to say it."

The world shuts down behind his eyes, shuts down to Soonyoung's lips on his and the press of the wall against his back. He smiles against the kiss and when Soonyoung parts, "I love you, Seokmin" flutters so close in their space.

"I love you, too, Soonyoung," silences the rest of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! and for dealing with reading my attempt at non-graphic smut...which probably isn't much anyway but stILL it is a Struggle for me to read it so yeah  
> also !!! the movie they were watching when they should have been studying was Up! :')) the first second of "married life" always hurts me hard until the last second. and if i counted everything correctly, they hit all 100 ways by the end of this chapter :D  
> if you like to scream at me, the opportunities are always open on [ tumblr](http://seokmins-thighs.tumblr.com/), [twitter,](https://twitter.com/leescokmin) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity) <3


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